John IV (Patriarch)

John IV , also known as John Nesteutes or John the Faster ( ancient Greek Ιωάννης Δ΄ Νηστευτής ; † September 2, 595 ) was the 33rd Patriarch of Constantinople (April 11, 582 to 595). He was the first to hold the title of Ecumenical Patriarch. He is venerated as a saint by the Eastern Churches; his festival falls on the day of his death, September 2nd.

Johannes, known as Nesteutes, Jejunator, or sometimes Cappadox, was born into a family of craftsmen in Constantinople. The date of his birth is unknown. Johannes was not educated, but got the nickname "der Faster" (Greek Nesteutes) because of his ascetic lifestyle. Before starting his church career, he worked as a sculptor. He became a deacon at Hagia Sophia under Patriarch John III. (Scholasticus). Later he was appointed Sakellarios (Patriarchal Vicar of the Monasteries). Under Patriarch Eutychius I, who after the death of John III. was reinstated, John gained the respect of the clergy in Constantinople. After the death of Eutychius I, John was appointed patriarch by Emperor Tiberius II on April 11, 582. Five years later, in 587 or 588, he called the bishops of the eastern half of the empire to a council "in the name of the Ecumenical Patriarch" to decide on the case of Gregory, Patriarch of Antioch. This was acquitted and reinstated. Pope Gregory I , who previously had a good relationship with John when he was still papal apocrisy in Constantinople and valued him for his virtuous way of life, however, rejected the use of the new title as presumptuous. Gregory used the same arguments against the patriarch that were later used by the Orthodox against the papal primacy. Gregory's letter to John is important evidence that the popes at that time did not claim to be a primacy of jurisdiction in their self-image.

The canons and canons of John the Faster

While John was met with suspicion in the West, he occupies an important place among the Fathers of the Church in the Eastern Churches. The canons attributed to him , which are part of Greek and Slavic canon law, are of particular importance . The Byzantinist Hans-Georg Beck carried out a text analysis of the canons and the canons attached to the canons and came to the conclusion that the canons themselves go back partly to a student of Basil the Great , partly to John Chrysostom , while the canon is very likely dates from the 10th century. The canons regulate the penance that confessors should impose for certain sins. Together with his canon, the canons of John IV are probably the most detailed source for assessing sexual acts, especially same-sex acts. The canons condemn anal intercourse (arsenokoitia) as a perfect sin (as well as adultery and premarital intercourse). It is noteworthy that the canons see anal intercourse not only as a sin between men, but that this sin is subject to a particularly harsh penance if it takes place between man and woman or married couple (eight years of exclusion from communion compared to only four for unmarried men). Mutual masturbation among men, women and between men and women was regarded by the canons as having equal status and was punished comparatively mildly (eighty days of exclusion from communion). The canons are u. a. a testimony that a) sexual sins were viewed in a nuanced manner and b) that the same-sex aspect of sexual acts was not viewed as aggravating, but the opposite was the case.

literature

• G. Dokos: Exomologetarion - A Manual of Confessions by our Righteous God-bearing Father Nikodemos the Hagiorite . Uncut Mountain Press, Thessalonica 2006.
• Agapius & Nicodemus, The Rudder (Pedalion) - All the Sacred and Divine Canons, 1957, The Orthodox Christian Educational Society, Chicago
• The History of Christianity, Antiquity III: The Latin West and the Byzantine East . Herder, Freiburg 2005.
• Hans-Georg Beck : Church and theological literature in the Byzantine Empire . Beck, Munich 1959.
• Alexios G. Savvides, Benjamin Hendrickx (Eds.): Encyclopaedic Prosopographical Lexicon of Byzantine History and Civilization . Vol. 3: Faber Felix - Juwayni, Al- . Brepols Publishers, Turnhout 2012, ISBN 978-2-503-53243-1 , pp. 384-386.
• Nikolaus Thon: Source book for the history of the Orthodox Church 1983, p. 188 ff.
• Karl Heinz Uthemann:  Johannes IV. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 3, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-035-2 , Sp. 394-399.

Web links

• Entry in the Orthodoxwiki (English)
• Extract from the Exomologetarion
• The canons of John the Faster

predecessor	Office	successor
Eutychios of Constantinople	Patriarch of Constantinople 582-595	Kyriakos