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John the Merciful

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[[Image:StJohntheMerciful.jpg]]
Our father among the saints John the Merciful was [[bishop]] of [[Alexandria]] in the early 7th century. He gained his epithet from his unstinting generosity in distributing the vast wealth of the [[patriarchate]] of [[Alexandria]] to the poor and afflicted. The main source for his biography is a Life written by Leontius of Neapolis in [[Cyprus]]. John is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on [[November 12]].
==Early Life and Consecration as Patriarch==
John was born in Amathus on [[Cyprus]] c. 550 to the patrician Epiphanius, a governor of the island. He married and had children, but was a widower when he was called to become [[patriarch]] of [[Alexandria]] on the recommendation of his friend, the city's imperial prefect Nicetas. The [[Chalcedonian]] see of Alexandria had been vacant since the death in 609 of Theodore during the capture of the city by Nicetas leading forces of the rebel [[Heraclius]] against the emperor Phocas. In 611 John assumed the throne, the fifth Chalcedonian bishop of Alexandria to bear that name.
John voiced opposition to [[Heraclius]]' early attempts at promoting [[monoenergism]] as a compromise solution to the schism over [[Chalcedon]], but did not participate in the major controversies that soon developed. He was forced to flee [[Alexandria]] by the Persian invasion of Egypt in 619. Returning to Cyprus, he died soon thereafter. A few years later much of John's work of reconciliation with the [[non-Chalcedonians]] of Egypt was undone by the violent persecution instituted by Cyrus, who combined both imperial and ecclesiastical authority as dual prefect and patriarch of [[Alexandria]].
John is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on November 12.
==Sources==
The Life by Leontius along with several interpolations from other sources can be found in Dawes and Baynes, ''Three Byzantine Saints'' (Crestwood NY 1977). A good recent summary can be found in the new Synaxarion written by Hieromonk Macarius of Simonopetra, Christopher Hookway (trans.) ''The Synaxarion: The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church: Volume 2: November, December'' (Ormylia Greece 1999) under the entry for November 12. John's relations with non-Chalcedonians are treated briefly in John Meyendorff ''Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church 450-680 A.D.'' (Crestwood NY 1989). Online, entries can be found on Wikipedia at [[Wikipedia:St. John the Merciful|St. John the Merciful]] and on the Catholic Encyclopedia under [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08486a.htm St. John the Almsgiver].
The image used in this article is from the [http://www.iconograms.org/ Iconograms] web site of the Department of Internet Ministries of the [http://www.goarch.org/ Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America].
 
[[Category:Saints]]
[[Category:Bishops]]
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