Sophronius of Jerusalem, Saint

SOFRONIO di GERUSALEMME, saint. - Born in Damascus c. 560, died in Jerusalem on 11 March 638.

A monk in Jerusalem, Giovanni Mosco (v.) to Egypt and Rome, and after the latter’s death (619) returned to Palestine. He visited Egypt once more, where he defended dyothelitism against the patriarch Ciro. Elected patriarch of Jerusalem (634), in 637 he was compelled to surrender the holy city to the caliph Omar.

His ideas on the two energies in Christ are known from his synodal letter. A florilegium containing 600 testimonies of the Fathers in favor of the two energies has not survived. S. is also known as a hagiographer and is the author of the

Vita and of the collection of miracles of the Egyptian saints Ciro and Giovanni (PG 87, 3, 3377-3676), a work of thanksgiving to the saints, written with all the refinements of rhetorical art. The Vita Mariae Aegyptiacae, attributed to him, is not authentic (ibid., 3697-3726). Together with Giovanni Mosco he composed a biography of the Alexandrian patriarch Giovanni l'Elemosiniere (d. 619); he also wrote poems: Anacreonteia (ibid., 3733-3838), which were not intended for religious services. Whether he also wrote liturgical hymns is disputed. Some of his sermons have survived, among which important are that on the Annunciation to Mary (ibid., 3217-88) and one for the feast of Christmas (ed. by H. Usener, in Rhein. Museum f. Philol., new series, 41 [1886], pp. 500-16; V. on this sermon H. Usener, Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, I, Bonn 1889, p. 326 ff. and Phokylides, in Ehklesiastikas Pharos, 1918, p. 319 ff.).