Stone & Incense Search
Start hereCurious, or no faithEvangelical, Pentecostal or ProtestantFrom another faithSomeone I love is CatholicBecoming CatholicI was Catholic once Today in the ChurchLibraryHard questionsVoices of the revivalTake the next stepAboutSources & methodSupport the site
The saints

St. Peter Chrysologus

The golden-worded bishop who kept his sermons short.

Feast: 30 July · about 406 to about 450 · The early Church · Imola and Ravenna, Italy

Read the story 1 min read
Engraved medallion of St. Peter Chrysologus reading a book.

Fcosampieri, 2012. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

Home / The saints / St. Peter Chrysologus

Ravenna, the 5th century

Peter was bishop of Ravenna when it was the capital of the Western Empire.1

His preaching was so good he was called Chrysologus, golden-worded.1

His sermons were short, about fifteen minutes, because he did not want to tire his people.

Patronage No official patronage we can cite yet. The Church honors him as Chrysologus, the golden-worded, a Doctor of the Church.

01St. Peter Chrysologus

Golden words

Many of his sermons survive, on the Gospels, the Creed and the Our Father.1

He is a Doctor of the Church.1

Live it this week

Say it in fewer words

Peter preached short, and people remembered. This week, in one email, talk or argument, say what matters in half the words you’d normally use.

Notes

How we know · 1 source for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Peter Chrysologus”. 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.