The life of St Ambrose of Milan
He tried to refuse, but yielded, and within days received baptism, ordination, and consecration together.
As bishop he became one of his century's fiercest defenders of Nicene faith against Arianism and one of the first churchmen to insist, forcefully and in practice, on the Church's independence from imperial authority. A young teacher of rhetoric named Augustine came in 385 to hear him preach, meaning only to study his style of speech, and found himself drawn instead toward the faith Ambrose taught; Ambrose baptized him at the Easter Vigil two years later. In 390, after the emperor Theodosius answered a riot at Thessalonica with a massacre of its people, Ambrose refused him communion until he had performed public penance, and the emperor, remarkably, submitted.
Ambrose died in Milan in 397, remembered among the great teachers of the Western Church for the same plain courage he had shown a governor's authority once turned toward Christ.
