AMPHILOCHIUS, Saint. - Bishop of Iconium in Lycaonia, friend of Sts. Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus, born at Caesarea in Cappadocia around 340-45. Trained in the school of Libanius (v.) at Antioch, he followed his father in the forensic career, which he practiced at Constantinople from 364 onward. Disgusted, in 369 he withdrew to Ozitala to assist his now aged father and to devote himself to the service of God. The invitation extended to him shortly afterward by St. Basil to go to Caesarea, and accepted by him (373), was decisive for his life. It does not appear that until then he had received the sacred orders; but at the beginning of 374 he was a bishop. The inhabitants of Iconium, after the death of their bishop Faustinus, had turned to St. Basil to designate a successor. His choice fell on A., who, reluctant, had to assume the care of that see recently elevated to a metropolis. Until his death Basil maintained an intimate and affectionate correspondence with A., to whom he was generous with advice and assistance in the affairs pertaining to his office. To him the bishop of Caesarea dedicated the De Spiritu Sancto, written at his suggestion; and at the same time (374-75) he addressed to him the three canonical epistles on ecclesiastical order, following questions put to him by his spiritual son, born into the ecclesiastical affairs of Isauria, Lycia and Lycaonia. St. Basil, by then prostrated by illness, also invited him to assist him in the administration of his own diocese, which had become a very heavy burden.
In 381, A. participated in the ecumenical Council of Constantinople and subscribed to the formula fidei against the errors of Macedonius. Tireless in combating heresy, in 383 he provoked the edicts of Theodosius against the Arians and presided at Sida in Pamphylia over a synod that condemned the Messalians. It seems that his energy provoked the religious crusade that extirpated this heresy. The date of his death is unknown; it occurred probably before 403; he was still living in 394, when he took part in a Synod of Constantinople. His feast falls on November 23.
Most of his writings have been lost. Besides fragments reported by Theodoret, by John Damascene and others (PG 39, 97-118), there still remain: 1) Iambi ad Seleucum (published by Migne among the works of Greg. Nazianzen: PG 37, 1577 ff.), a poem of 333 iambic trimeters with which he exhorts the nephew of the general Trajan to the Christian life; 2) Epistola Synodica, against the Macedonian heresy, drafted by mandate of the synod of Iconium of 376; 3) Orationes et Homediae. Further clarifications and discoveries concerning the writings of A. have come about as a result of the studies of K. Holl and G. Ficker. What remains of his works is not enough to judge the value of A. as a theologian and writer; but the enthusiastic judgment of his contemporaries (cf. PG 39, 27-34) leaves no doubt on the matter. Above all the testimonies of St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nazianzus, to whom we owe the scanty information on the life of A., present him as a man devoted to study and investigation, an unblemished bishop and herald of truth. The Christian East saw in him a champion of orthodoxy and one of the most representative personalities of the Greek Church.
The works of A. are collected by Migne in PG 39, 9-130, according to the text of Gallandi, Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum, VI, Venice 1770, pp. 457-514.
Bibliography7 works
Mario Scaduto