Pope Sicirius was elected and issued several letters
decreeing rules governing religious discipline, including decisions on baptism,
consecration, ordination, penance, and continence. His decretal of 386 was the
first to institute a requirement of celibacy for priests. Meanwhile Jerome and the women following
the ascetic way of life of the desert monks settled near the
birthplace of Jesus in Bethlehem, where they erected four monasteries and a
hospice for pilgrims. Marcella, the church leader who had first gathered them in her home on the Aventine Hill in Rome, remained behind.
Olympias the Younger was born in Antioch in 368 CE to the
brother of her namesake Olympias the Elder. Her
parents died when she was very young and she inherited a large fortune that was
placed under the Christian protection of Gregory and Theodosia of Nazianzus. At
the age of sixteen Olympias the Younger married the Praetorian Prefect of
Constantinople who died just two years
later leaving her a childless widow. She took this to be a sign that God
wanted her to follow the ascetic way of life of her aunt.
In 396 CE John Chrysostom, the Bishop of Constantinople
ordained Olympias to the diaconate and she used her fortune to build a large convent
next to the Hagia Sophia. Three of her
relatives and a large number of women entered the convent as soon as it was
opened. Olympias employed her vast financial
resources in building hospitals and orphanages throughout Greece, Asia Minor and Syria.
When Chrysostum urged her to be more cautious in the administration of her property, outraged clergy began to plot against him.
Olympias befriended a hermit monk who persuaded her to
support the pilgrims in the Nitrian desert, while Chrysostom tried to reconcile
Constantinople with Rome and Alexandria.
In his popular homilies Chrysostom pointed to Olympias as a model
Christian piety and an example for the people to follow. Though his eloquence earned him great respect
among the laity, the elite members of the clergy were offended by his
insinuations about the need for reform and plotted to destroy him.
