The life of St Sophronius of Jerusalem
Increasingly known for his defense of Christ's two wills against the spreading teaching of monothelitism, Sophronius pressed his case in Alexandria and Constantinople without success before his own election as Patriarch of Jerusalem in 634. His years in the patriarchate coincided with the Arab conquest of the region. As Caliph Umar's forces advanced on Jerusalem after a long siege, Sophronius negotiated the city's surrender in 637, securing terms that let its Christian population keep their churches and continue to worship. He died within the year, in March 638, not long after the city's fall. He left behind a body of hymns, sermons, and saints' lives, including an account of Mary of Egypt, along with a synodal letter on the two wills of Christ still read as a landmark of that controversy. He is remembered as a bishop who held his flock together at the hinge of an empire's collapse.
