Ascholius of Thessalonica

Saint Ascholius was bishop of Thessalonica from 379 until his death in 383 or 384. He was a hierarch of the right faith at the time when Nicene Christianity was becoming the religion of the empire, and he baptized the emperor Theodosius the Great. He is remembered on 23 January. Nothing of his writing survives, and his life is known from the letters and writings of his contemporaries.

Sources and origin

Ascholius is spoken of by Saint Basil the Great, Saint Ambrose of Milan, Pope Innocent, the historians Socrates Scholasticus, Sozomen and Theodoret of Cyrrhus, and in the letters of Pope Damasus to him and of Ambrose to the people of Thessalonica. Basil wrote of him in letters 154 and 164. It was once thought that Basil's letter 165 was also sent to him, but it is now held to have been sent to a certain Julius Saron, duke of Scythia. On the basis of that letter, tradition took him to be from Caesarea in Cappadocia. The historian Orest Tafrali, relying on Louis Petit, takes him to be from Achaia, since according to Ambrose Ascholius had been a monk there from his youth.

The bishop

Our sources do not agree on how he became bishop: some say he was chosen about 379 by the people of Thessalonica and of all Macedonia, others that Pope Damasus set him on the throne, to preserve Roman influence against the expansion of the bishop of Constantinople. A Bulgarian source says he was chosen to bring peace to the city and to Macedonia and that he had worked in Thessalonica even before he was bishop. His shepherding fell in a time when heresies were rising, those of the Arians, the Macedonians, the Apollinarians and others. Ascholius was strictly Orthodox, and his work strengthened the right faith in the empire. It was also a time of barbarian invasions.

During the war with the Goths the emperor Theodosius was in Thessalonica, commanding the Roman armies, and came under the spiritual influence of Ascholius, a defender of the faith of Nicaea. At the beginning of 380 Theodosius fell gravely ill and, as was the custom of the time, was baptized by Ascholius. On 28 February 380 he issued the edict of Thessalonica, which commanded all subjects of the empire to confess the faith of Nicaea, which thus became the religion of the empire.

The council and his repose

Ascholius did not at first take part in the Second Ecumenical Council, gathered at Constantinople right after the edict, but after the death of Meletius of Antioch and the election of Saint Gregory the Theologian as president, he was among the five leading bishops of the council. Other sources say he was present at the council and that the claims of Maximus the Cynic to the see of Constantinople were rejected there. In his time the capital of the province of Eastern Illyricum was moved from Sirmium to Thessalonica, and his dignity rose to that of vicar of the bishop of Rome, a title which Damasus gives to his successor, Anysius.

He died in 383 or 384. Saint Ambrose calls him a pillar of faith, grace and holiness, and Saint Basil the Great calls him a light of the Church. The Church remembers him on 23 January.