Severus of Antioch

 

Introduction: When the disciples died and left, other church leaders stood up to take their place. These leaders are called "Godfathers" because they are often venerated by the church.  At the first several centuries after Christ churches were control and lead by them. They took important role in Christian church history. Severus of Antioch was one of them.

Biography of Severus: Severus was a great church leader , He was born in 459 A.D Sozopolis n the province of Pisidia. He studied Greek and Latin grammar and rhetoric in Alexandria, and studied law and philosophy at the Roman Law School in Beirut. He came from a wealthy Christian family, but later Monophysite sources say his family was pagan. His father was a senator in the city, and his paternal grandfather, also named Severus , was the Bishop of  Sozopolis and had attended the council of Ephesus in 431. According to the biography of Severus, he was named after his grandfather because he received a vision in which he said, "Your son's child will strengthen Orthodoxy, and his name will be called thou." After his father's death in 485, Severus went to Alexandria, Egypt, to study Greek and Latin writing, rhetoric, and philosophy. In Alexandria, he met a classmate and friend, Zechariah of Lesbos, who persuaded him to read St. Gregory and St. Correspondence with Basil of Caesarea, especially Libanius. According to Zechariah, while he was a student in Alexandria, he and Severus discovered and destroyed a collection of pagan idols in the neighboring city of Menutis . ⁶ He death on 5 February 538 AD in the city of Sakha.

Monkhood :

Severus then lived his life by refusing to bathe and fast. However, St. In Tripolis, Leontius, in Emesa, St. John the Savior, and in Jerusalem, he decided to join Valgrius the Egyptian and become an idol. Severus entered the Iberian Peter Monastery near Meuma in Palestine, the main center of non-Chalcedonianism, and remained there for several years. He then joined his monastic brethren in the desert near Eleutheropolis, led by Archbishop Mamas. Severus  practised ascenticism in the desert until c. 500 , at which time he became ill and was convinced to recover at the Monastery of saint Romanus in Maiuma , where he was ordained a priest by Epiphanius, Bishop of Magydus. In Maiuma, which Severus inherited from his family, he shared property with his brothers, gave most of it to the poor, and built a monastery.

Patriarch of Antioch:

In 512, Patriarch of Antioch II. Flavian was released by Anastasia, and a meeting was held in Laodicea, Syria, to choose a successor. Civelu was ordained on November 6 and was consecrated in the Cathedral of Antioch on November 16. Dionysius, bishop of Tarsus, Nikia, bishop of Laodicea, Philocsenus, bishop of Hierapolis, Peter, bishop of Veria, Simeon, bishop of Chalcis, and Marion, bishop of Sulla, Eusebius of Gabbula, Silvanus of Urima, Sergius of cyrrhus , John of Europus, Philoxenus of Doliche, and lulianus of Salamias. During the consecration ceremonuy,

The Great Works of ST. Severus:

As for the great council of Chalcedon, its men were many, and they were as a horse which is ready for war; but they were cast out by the words of father Severus, and they, even the bishops of Chalcedon, were as a spider. And the father did not fear the new king nor his officers of his kingdom who followed is will , but he stood before them like a rock and dying for the sake of Christ was far better in his eyes than living . And he was patient in everything that befell him of terror and persecution and hunger and thirst and travel by sea many times, and peril from his brethren the bishops, lying hypocrites, and from the apostates; for they left the true way and turned to ruin. ¹

As a monk he joined the monastery of Peter at Maiuma and later he organized a community of his own. He became well-versed in Christian scriptures and the writings of the fathers. He was a great Christian theologian , he created many sermons and the doctrinal letter which he wrote to a large number of people. He also compose many hymns, which was familiar among the Christian community . In addition to collecting stamps, Severus was a devout and devout Christian who wrote three books rejecting the English language and rejecting all of John's work and opposition to its critics. This treatise consistently worked out an interpretation of the person of christ on the basis of the writings of Church fathers. Severus may have completed this work in the early twenties of the sixth century. ⁵ He wrote  books against heresies, answered letters and gave personal opinions on legal matters. He also involved himself in pursuit of unity between his fellow bishops but was not successful. He was appointed by the Church as the great doctor of the Catholic Church. Severus' writings include polemics, ceremonies, commentaries, sermons, and letters. All of these writings are in greek and have been translated into syriac by Syrian scholars.²

Severus Fights for the Truth:

When Severus had come to the king of Macedonius, he and all his kingdom saluted him with great joy. And they brought the writing in which were the impious things that were gathered in it  from the words of Findianus and Nestorius, and revealed to the king and brought to him the actual saying of the Cyril, and advised the casting out of all the schismatics. And straightaway all the people shouted and said with a loud voice, “Your coming is good, O Severus,O light in which is no darkness, salt that has not lost its savour, so our Lord in his  holy gospel says . You, O Severus , are a light to the peoples byyour spiritual words , and you have enlightened kings by your doctrine which is full of the Holy spirit, and you have shown them Christ face to face , and the saying sufferings which he endured for us, and you have made us to touch unfathomable mysteries,..............”.

Severus Thought:

There are three aspects to the process of incarnation as understood by anti-chalcedonians : before the incarnation , the act of incarnation, and result of incarnation. Before the incarnation, there are two eternity, the human being never existed separately – if it had, we would have to speak of two separate natures, hypostases, or persons in Christ. The humanity is, however, intellectually considered as existing, in order for the incarnation to be thought of as a union of divinity and humanity. As it were, a mental construction, and duality of the natures disappears with the union. In the second aspect of the process, the law of incarnation, Severus' focus is complete union, and the term for the act of union is natural union or physical union. This union is a new state of the logos, who as Severus says, is believed immortal.

Third, the two hypostases united in Christ have an iconic relationship, each reflecting the other different level of reality. While, however, the divinity and humanity are united inseparably, Severus strenuously and repeatedly denies that the force of this union demands confusion or mixture indeed, a mixture of the two natures is impossible, because they represent two different levels, the supra-sensual and the perceptible.