Saint John of Damascus

c. 675 – 749 · Last of the Greek Fathers · Antiochene / Syriac

Commemorated December 4 →

John Damascene; monk of the monastery of St Sabbas near Jerusalem; the last of the Greek Fathers in the traditional reckoning. His three Apologetic Treatises Against Those Who Decry the Holy Images are the foundational theological defence of icon veneration during the iconoclast persecution, and the dogmatic basis of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787). His Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith — the third part of the larger Fount of Knowledge — is the first systematic dogmatic theology of the Eastern Church, synthesizing the inheritance of the Cappadocians, Maximus the Confessor, and the Damascene's own monastic experience. Author also of magnificent liturgical hymnography that remains in continuous use in the Orthodox Church (the canon of Pascha, the Resurrection canons, the funeral hymns).

Icon: John of Damascus · Unknown authorUnknown author · Public domain