Blessed (Western Father)

Blessed Augustine of Hippo

354–430 · 5th c. · 50 works

Blessed Augustine of Hippo (c. 354–430) was bishop of Hippo Regius in Roman North Africa and the most influential of the Latin Fathers of the Church. A theologian, preacher, and prolific writer, he adapted classical philosophy to Christian teaching, shaping the course of Western theology for centuries. Reckoned among the greatest of the Western Fathers, he is venerated in the Orthodox Church as “Blessed Augustine.”

Born at Thagaste in Numidia to the pagan Patricius and the Christian Monica, Augustine studied rhetoric at Carthage and for about a decade adhered to Manichaeism. Teaching rhetoric brought him to Milan, where, under the influence of Bishop Ambrose, he turned to Christianity and was baptized in 387. He returned to Africa, was ordained priest at Hippo in 391 and consecrated bishop there about 395. As bishop he led prolonged controversies against the Donatists and the Pelagians.

Of the more than one hundred works attributed to him, the best known are the Confessions, an introspective account of his early life and conversion, and the City of God, written to restore Christian confidence after the fall of Rome. Also widely read are his treatises On the Trinity and On Christian Doctrine, which shaped biblical interpretation and theological method.

Augustine died at Hippo in 430, while a Vandal army besieged the city; his relics are now kept at Pavia in Italy. He is venerated as a saint in the West and honored in the Orthodox Church as Blessed Augustine, whose commemoration falls on 15 June.

Sources: Orthodox Church in America — Blessed Augustine of Hippo · Encyclopædia Britannica — St. Augustine