Sophronius of Jerusalem
Sophronius ( 560 in Damascus *, † March 11 638 () in Jerusalem? ) Was the Patriarch of Jerusalem from 634 until his death. Before he took this bishopric, he was a monk and theologian as one of the main representatives of the orthodox doctrine in the controversy over the nature of Jesus and his acts of will.
He was first a teacher of rhetoric and was around 580 an ascetic in Egypt, whereupon he entered the monastery of St. Theodosius in Bethlehem. He traveled to several centers of monastic culture in Asia Minor, Egypt and Rome. He accompanied the Byzantine chronicler John Moschus, the ( " the spiritual Aue " ) dedicated to him the treatise on the religious life called Leimõn ho Leimõnon. After the death of musk in Rome 619 Sophronius brought the corpse for burial back to Jerusalem. He traveled to Alexandria and to Constantinople in the year 633 Opel to move the local patriarchs, store monotheletism, a doctrine which assumed a single divine will in Christ and at the same time exclude the human freedom of choice. Sophronius writings on this subject are lost.
Although he was unsuccessful with this effort, Sophronius was elected Patriarch of Jerusalem 634. Soon after his appointment he sent a synodal letter to Pope Honorius I and the eastern patriarchs, in which he represented the orthodox belief in the two natures in Christ, namely a human and a divine, opposite the Monothelitism he for a subtle form the heretical Monophysitism at her. He wrote also an Florilegium of about 600 texts of the Greek Fathers to untermauermn the position of Dyotheletismus. This work has not survived.
In his Christmas sermon of 634 Sophronius was particularly striving to keep the clergy on its line, and were only a few non-specific warnings about the advance of the Arabs in Palestine, where he mentioned that the Arabs Bethlehem have taken. He died shortly after the fall of Jerusalem in AD 637, after he had negotiated the recognition of the (albeit limited) civil and religious freedoms of Christians in return for tribute - a deal that is known as the Pact of Umar. The Caliph Umar is intended to be himself came to Jerusalem and met with the Patriarch of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Sophronius invited him to pray there, but Umar declined, fearing to jeopardize the status of the church as a Christian temple. The reason for this warm welcome is reported that according to Bible prophecy a humble, but just and powerful man will come on a donkey, which should prove to be a protector of the Christians of Jerusalem.
Besides polemics found in Sophronius works writings about the martyrs Cyrus of Alexandria and John of Alexandria in gratitude for the recovery of his declining eyesight. He also wrote 23 Anacreontic poems about topics such as the Arab siege of Jerusalem and liturgical celebrations. His poems 19 and 20 seem to be about the longing for the Holy City. The order of the two poems has probably been reversed; in the correct order, they describe a complete tour of the most important shrines of Jerusalem at the end of the sixth century, which is considered the golden age of Christianity in the Holy Land. Mentioned are the gates of Jerusalem, the place of descent into hell Jesus, the rock of the cross, the Constantinian basilica, Mount Zion, the Praetorium, Maria Probatica and Gethsemane ( 20 ), also the Mount of Olives, Bethany, and Bethlehem ( in 19).
The circumstances of his death are unclear. A Latin text, the suffering of the 60 Martyrs of Gaza, suggests that he was executed by the new authorities, since he is said to have convinced the 60 prisoners in Gaza Byzantine soldiers, not to convert for the sake of life to Islam.