St. John Chrysostom

Today is the feast of St. John Chrysostom. (In the Catholic calendar - the Orthodox celebrate his feast on November 13th). He was patriarch of Constantinople and a constant thorn in the side of the powerful. As a website dedicated to the saint puts it:

[H]e also made enemies by his denunciations of the vices and follies of the clergy and aristocracy. He emptied the Episcopal palace of its costly plate and furniture and sold it for the benefit of the poor and the hospitals. He introduced his strict ascetic habits and reduced the luxurious household of his predecessors to the strictest simplicity. He devoted his large income to benevolence. He refused invitations to banquets, gave no dinner parties, and ate the simplest fare in his solitary chamber. He denounced unsparingly luxurious habits in eating and dressing, and enjoined upon the rich the duty of almsgiving to an extent that tended to increase rather than diminish the number of beggars who swarmed in the streets and around the churches and public baths. He disciplined the vicious clergy and opposed the perilous and immoral habit of unmarried priests of living under the same roof with "spiritual sisters." This habit dated from an earlier age, and was a reaction against celibacy. Cyprian had raised his protest against it, and the Council of Nicea forbade unmarried priests to live with any females except close relations.

Because of his constant tendency to denounce the powerful, particularly the Empress, he was exiled from Constantinople and died on his journey out of the city.

Unfortunately, Chrysostom's zeal was not confined to defense of the poor. He is the author of the infamous Orations Against the Judaizers. Here is a page which explores the issue of whether Chrysostom was anti-semitic - from a viewpoint sympathetic to the saint.