Juvenal of Jerusalem

Saint Juvenal was Bishop of Jerusalem from 422. On the See of Jerusalem being recognised as a Metropolitinate by the Council of Chalcedon, he became the first Metropolitan of Jerusalem, an office he occupied until his death in 458. His jurisdictional reach over all three provinces of Roman Palestine would subsequently gain him the recognition as the first Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Background After the Siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 the city had been left in ruins, and after Hadrian's visit to the site in 135, a new Roman city was built, called Ælia Capitolina (Ælius was Hadrian's family nomen). Ælia was a town of little importance in the empire; the governor of the province resided at Caesarea. Caesarea became the metropolitan see; the Bishop of Ælia (Jerusalem) was merely one of its suffragans.

Life Little is known about his early life. Juvenal was born in the late 4th century and was consecrated Bishop of Jerusalem in 422. In 428/9 he consecrated the Laura of Euthymius, located on the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, and supplied it with presbyters and deacons. Euthymius and the monks of Palestine would go on to play an important role in the Chalcedonian controversy.

In 431, Juvenal sided with Cyril against Nestorius at the First Council of Ephesus. After the council he began to exert jurisdictional oversight across all three provinces of Roman Palestine; Juvenal wanted to make Jerusalem into a Metropolitan See but Cyril of Alexandria and Pope Leo I opposed the separation of Jerusalem from Cæsarea and Antioch.

Juvenal was one of the leaders of the Second Council of Ephesus in 449, being the first to sign it as an ally of Dioscorus. This led to his name being removed from the diptychs of the churches that rejected the council. However he changed his stance at the Council of Chalcedon convened later, condemning the previous council. In 451, the Fourth Ecumenical Council met in the city of Chalcedon and condemned the Monophysite heresy, which taught that the human nature in Christ was totally absorbed by the divine nature. Juvenal was among those who condemned the heresy and affirmed the doctrine of the union of two natures in Jesus Christ, the divine and the human, without separation and without mixture.

Theodosius reportedly filled Jerusalem with blood, then raised a military company to punish other rivals in the region like Severianus, Bishop of Scythopolis, whom he brutally executed in 452 or 453. Imperial troops restored Juvenal in 453, and he served in peace until his death in 458. In light of this, a century later Emperor Justinian would recognise Jerusalem as one of five Patriarchates.

Canonisation Juvenal is regarded as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church with his feast day celebrated on July 2.