AMBROSE OF MILAN

Saint Ambrose (339-397) was the bishop of Milan, or Mediolanum, as the ancient capital of Lombardy was then called in Latin. One of the most authoritative bishops of the late 4th century, a time which is usually called the Golden Age of patristic writing, he, along with Jerome, Augustine, and later Gregory the Great, is considered the pillar of theology, teaching about faith and morality of the Ancient Church.

According to the special predestination of God, the memory of Ambrose is revered in the Church the day after St. Nicholas. Like Nicholas in the East, Ambrose became a truly people’s saint, an intercessor of the faithful and a good shepherd in the West. In addition to geography, the two saints were separated by a temporal distance of approximately fifty years. They most likely did not know about each other. Unlike Nicholas, about whom very little historical information has been preserved, the biography of Ambrose the bishop is very well documented. Certain periods of his life are known to us with precision from day to day.

The election of Ambrose as bishop was accompanied by amazing circumstances. It took place thanks to the unanimous cry of the people gathered in the Church, inspired, according to life, by the voice of the boy who exclaimed in the church: ‘Ambrose is a bishop!’.

Such election by unanimous cry, called acclamation, is an ancient tradition of the Church, which was sometimes spontaneously practiced in those times. This was not the only wonderful thing about the election of Ambrose. The fact is that he himself had not yet been baptized. Being a Christian by conviction, but not yet baptized. According to the established practice of that time, Ambrose was just preparing for baptism. As a prefect he stood at the head of all Northern Italy. The latter was then of great importance, since the Roman Emperor himself used to stay in Milan. This gave the city the status of one of the imperial capitals.

The Church of Milan was seriously troubled by the Arian heretics, whose head, the Milanese bishop and theologian and polemicist, Auxentius (355–374), then passed away into another world. Originally from Cappadocia, he maintained contact with Eastern heretics. In Milan, the Arians hoped for succession. The Church urgently needed solution from division, confusion and heresy, and God, the Master of History, through the mouth of a child (Ps. 8:3), visited His people with the Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 7:16).

Thirteen years later, on Easter 387, Ambrose baptized Augustine. Just four years later, the future Father of the Christian West was ordained a priest against his own will, through a general acclamation of the people in the cathedral of the city of Hippo, in a manner that Ambrose had once experienced in Milan. This turned out to be the apostolic succession of two great saints, expressed in an unexpected and paradoxical divine will.