He was born in 657; his Christian father was chief of revenue at the Muslim court in Damascus. John was educated by a Sicilian monk, Cosmas, who had been taken captive, and whose liberation John’s father paid for. In 716 he became a monk, and later priest, of the famous St. Sabbas abbey near Jerusalem. He was a hymn-writer, the Eastern equivalent to St. Ambrose in that respect; the best known for us are a group of Easter hymns including ‘The day of Resurrection’. Many of his writings were in defence of icons; in 726 the Emperor Leo, in Constantinople, forbade their use on the grounds that they could encourage idolatry, and Orthodoxy was split. John could not be proceeded against because he lived in Muslim territory. (The use of icons — based on the fact that Christ took human form — was vindicated at the 2nd. Council of Nicaea, 787, using many of St. John’s arguments. He died in 749 and the Church saw its way to declaring him a Doctor of the Church in — 1890.