Who Was Your Favorite 4th Century Saint?

[Justin Kissel]

I consider Augustine to be a Saint of our Church, as I reiterated on this thread last week (and I may soon be expanding on my apologia ). The reason I didn't include Bl. Augustine († 430) in the poll is that he lived most of his life (and possibly all of his Christian life) during the 5th century; for a similar reason I also excluded Bl. Jerome (†420). St. John Chrysostom (†407) wasn't quite as difficult, as he spent most of his life as a Christian within the 4th century.

[Esther]

Augustine is quite definitely a Saint; it's only in modern times that there have been these campaigns against him. He may have had some opinions which were not entirely Orthodox, but then again pretty much all of the fathers say a few iffy things, when judged by the consensus of the other fathers. It's not Augustine's fault that the West idolized him so excessively after his death.

[romiosini]

Augustine is not considered an Orthodox saint. He is of Western influence, with Western theological misconceptions. He started off on a positive note, but got lost in the Western influence.

St. Seraphim of Sarov has definitely made an impact on my soul.

He very is Joasia. Ask your parish priest, he will tell you. He's even in your Russian Synaxarion. The only people to have retained Saint Augustine in the Calendar were the Slavs, unlike the Greeks, they had to readd him (due to the sudden forgetfulness of the Saint) into the Calendar in the 40s. I would agree on Saint Seraphim of Sarov, but we are talking about 4th century, if I were you, Saint Anthony would also go for me in the place of the 18-19th Century Saint.

[Justin Kissel]

You just reminded me that I've forgotten a great many 4th century monastic saints in the poll! Anthony, Macarius, Pachomius, and on and on. I apologize for this.

[romiosini]

You just reminded me that I've forgotten a great many 4th century monastic saints in the poll! Anthony, Macarius, Pachomius, and on and on. I apologize for this.

What For? Nothing wrong with forgetting. :mrgreen:

[joasia]

I guess it is the iffiness of St. Augustine's teachings that made me wonder, although, The City of God was one of the first books I read when I started learning about Orthodoxy. The other was the Philokalia.

I forgot it was about 4th century saints...guess I have St. Seraphim on my mind.

But, for fourth century, it would be St. Ephraim the Syrian. I have a humble Spiritual Psalter of his writings, arranged by Bishop Theophan the Recluse. I especially love the prayers to the Theotokos.

Romiosini, thanks for the clarification.

[penelope]

I picked St. John Chrysostom. I enjoy reading his homilies, especially his ones on the epistles of St. Paul.