St. John of Damascus (c. 676-749)

Son of a Christian family that served the Caliph in Damascus, and himself a financial official at the Umayyad court before he became a monk at the Lavra of St Sabbas near Jerusalem. From there, safely outside the emperor’s reach, he wrote the Three Treatises against those who destroyed the icons, with the argument the Seventh Council made its own: the invisible God became visible, so what is seen may be painted, and the honour given to an image passes to the one it shows. His Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith gathered the Fathers into the first systematic statement of the faith. He was also a hymnographer of the first rank: the Paschal Canon and much of the Octoechos are his. Tradition keeps the story of his severed hand restored by the Theotokos, which is why one of her icons is painted with three. Feast: December 4.