Ambrose of Milan

Ambrose was Bishop of Milan from 374 to 397 and the churchman who established that emperors are subject to the church's moral judgement. Born around 339 at Trier, the son of a praetorian prefect, he was trained in law and rhetoric and appointed governor of Aemilia-Liguria, based at Milan, then an imperial capital. In 374 the see fell vacant and Arians and Nicene Christians confronted each other over the succession. Ambrose went to the basilica to keep order and address the crowd, which acclaimed him bishop. He was a catechumen, not yet baptised, and held no clerical rank. He was baptised, ordained and consecrated within a week, and gave his property to the poor. He then taught himself theology, reading Greek writers and importing their thought into Latin, and became the leading opponent of Arianism in the West. He confronted imperial power three times. He refused to surrender a basilica to the Arian court of Justina in 386, occupying it with his congregation and teaching them hymns to sustain the vigil — the origin of congregational hymn singing in the West. He resisted the restoration of the Altar of Victory in the Senate against Symmachus. And after Theodosius I ordered a massacre of thousands at Thessalonica in 390 in reprisal for a riot, Ambrose refused him communion until he performed public penance, which the emperor did. He wrote extensively on ethics, the sacraments and virginity, and his preaching was decisive in the conversion of Augustine, whom he baptised in 387. He was among the first recorded to read silently, which Augustine found remarkable. He died in 397.

• Lived: 340 CE – 397 CE
• Nationality: Italian
• Roles: bishop, theologian