Sunday, 18 February

St Flavian

To offer a detailed account of the remarkable career of Flavian, whose life is in any case familiar from the acts of various councils and ecclesiastical historians, would be beyond the scope of a short column. One anecdote should suffice to give us something of the character of this saint whose "glory" was, as Butler puts it, to "die a martyr of the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God". After being made Archbishop of Constantinople, this humble cleric was approached by a eunuch, one Chrysaphius, chamberlain and special favourite to the Emperor Theodosius the Younger. The eunuch insisted that Flavian present their sovereign with a gift to express his gratitude for having been thus elevated to the episcopal state. The saint seems to have considered that a loaf of bread would do. Chrysaphius soon returned and, saying that this was not at all what he had in mind, intimated that he might put the resources of the archdiocese at His Majesty’s disposal. This enticement to simony filled Flavian with disgust, and he informed this loathsome creature that the funds of which he was overseer existed solely for the maintenance of the Church and the relief of God’s poor. From this moment the eunuch was intent upon the saint’s destruction. An exaggerated rebuke of Nestorius led Flavian within an inch of heresy, wherein Chrysaphius and his master saw their chance. Years later, after many persecutions at the hands of the temporal power for his defence of orthodox Christology, he was killed, having been previously deposed as the servant of St Leo, a pope cravenly "excommunicated" by two Egyptian toadies of the Emperor. It is worth observing, however, that in the end Chrysaphius was put to death by Pulcheria, the sister of Theodorus, who had Flavian’s remain brought to Constantinople in a magnificent procession.