Was Saint John of Kronstadt an Anti-Semite and Pogromist?

There is no evidence - neither in the texts of Father John of Kronstadt, nor the memoirs of his contemporaries - where he would have expressed something anti-Semitic. As for being called a "pogromist" - it is exactly the opposite. When in 1903 there was a terrible pogrom in Chisinau, Father John, together with Bishop Anthony Khrapovitsky, signed a sharp statement - "Word on the Chisinau Events", where he very harshly condemned the pogroms from a Christian standpoint. Furthermore, this text was later disseminated by Jewish societies, which attracted the attacks of extreme reactionaries on Father John.

Was John Chrysostom an Anti-Semite?

The Protection of Christians from Judaism

By Stylianos Papadopoulos

Like almost all ecclesiastical writers, Chrysostom also wrote about the Jews. Those who wrote against the Jews before Chrysostom were primarily the apologist Apelles (whose text was lost), Justin (Dialogue With Trypho), Tertullian and Pseudo-Cyprian. Later Philastrius of Brescia wrote about them and more occasionally by Eusebius of Caesarea, Athanasius the Great and the Cappadocian Fathers. The other writers, his predecessors and his contemporaries, only occasionally referred to the Jews with judgments.

Chrysostom has eight short texts, which record his homilies to the flock of Antioch in the years 386 or 387. Often these texts contain harsh expressions about the Jews and, above all, a critique of their ceremonies and customs, and of their religious behavior during the days of the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Church. Of course, his criticism is not more severe than that of the Prophets and Christ himself against the Jews. But his own criticism has prompted a fierce reaction from older and contemporary writers, many of whom attribute to Chrysostom a harsh anti-Semitism, which allegedly influenced Christian writers from the fifth century onward.