Severian of Gabala

Severian was bishop of Gabala in Syria and a gifted preacher who came to Constantinople around the year 400. There his eloquence won him favour at court, but he became one of the most active opponents of John Chrysostom, the city’s own bishop, and had a hand in the intrigues that drove Chrysostom into the exile in which he died. There is a deep irony in Severian’s legacy: many of his own Greek homilies survived only because later copyists preserved them under the name of the very rival he had helped to bring down.