St. Peter Chrysologus

St. Peter Chrysologus (born c. 400/406, Imola, near Ravenna—died c. 450, Imola; feast day July 30) was the archbishop of Ravenna. His orthodox discourses earned him the status of doctor of the church, a title granted to saints of the Roman Catholic Church whose writings and teachings are deemed especially significant. The title Chrysologus (Golden Orator) was added to his name at a later date, probably to create a Western counterpart to the Eastern patriarch St. John Chrysostom.

About 433 he became archbishop of Ravenna, where, with the aid of Galla Placidia, the mother of the Roman emperor Valentinian III, he promoted the construction of church buildings. He was a close friend of Pope Leo I the Great and was highly respected by the Western and Eastern churches for his orthodoxy. In 448 when the Eastern monk Eutyches was condemned for founding Eutychianism, an extreme form of Monophysitism teaching that Christ’s nature was only divine and not also human, he appealed to Peter, whose reply withheld judgment but instructed Eutyches to be obedient to Leo.

Many of Peter’s homilies survive, including the letter to Eutyches. In the standard collection of 176 sermons made in the 8th century, however, several are not authentic. His short sermons stress the fundamental Christian doctrines and the duties of Christian life in keeping with the needs and ideals of the times. Peter was declared a doctor of the church by Pope Benedict XIII in 1729.