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The saints

St. John Damascene

A Christian official at a Muslim court who defended icons against an emperor.

Feast: 4 December · about 676 to 749 · The Middle Ages · Damascus and Jerusalem

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Icon of St. John Damascene in a dark turban and robe, holding a scroll with writing.

Unknown author. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

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Damascus, the 8th century

John grew up in Damascus, where his family served the Muslim caliph as financial officials.1

He later became a monk at the monastery of Mar Saba near Jerusalem.1

When the Byzantine emperor banned holy images, John wrote powerful defenses of them.

Patronage No official patronage we can cite yet. The Church honors him as the great defender of holy images.

01St. John Damascene

Images of the invisible

He argued that since God became visible in Jesus, we may make images of Him.1

He also summed up the teaching of the Greek Fathers in a book used for centuries.1

Live it this week

Pray with an icon

John defended holy images because God became visible. Put an icon or image of Jesus where you pray this week and spend a few minutes just looking at it.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint John Damascene”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.