Our father among the saints '''John the Merciful''' was [[patriarch]] of Alexandria in the early 7th century, also known as '''John V of Alexandria'''. He gained his epithet from his many [[philanthropic]] labors and his unstinting generosity in distributing the vast wealth of the [[patriarchate]] of Alexandria to the poor and afflicted. The main source for his biography is a Life written by Leontius of Neapolis in Cyprus. John is commemorated in the Orthodox Church on [[November 12]].

John was born in Amathus on Cyprus c. 550 to the patrician Epiphanius, a governor of the island. He married and had children, but was a widower when he was called to become patriarch of Alexandria on the recommendation of his friend, the city's imperial prefect Nicetas. The [[Council of Chalcedon|Chalcedonian]] [[see ]] of Alexandria had been vacant since the death in 609 of Theodore during the capture of the city by Nicetas. In 611 John assumed the throne, becoming the fifth Chalcedonian bishop of Alexandria to bear that name.

John was remarkable for his almsgiving or mercy (''eleemosyneἐλεημοσύνη'' in Greek, hence his title ''EleemonἘλεήμων''). To someone who was astounded at his generosity he recounted a vision he had seen in his youth in which Compassion appeared to him as a beautiful maiden and told him that she was the eldest daughter of God. The patriarchate of Alexandria had at its disposal immense wealth in both money and commercial enterprises, including shipping, and John put it all at the disposal of the poor. He was not only liberal with the resources of his see, but with his own goods. In one incident in his life he felt remorseful for accepting a richly-embroidered blanket as a gift and was unable to sleep until he sold it and gave the proceeds to the poor. He also made himself available to anyone who had a petition, grievance, or request. His generosity did draw censure at times. In one case one of his aides noticed that someone was abusing the distribution of goods in John's very presence, returning several times in different guises, but when he mentioned this John replied that it might be Christ in disguise. In another case he came to loggerheads with his friend Nicetas when the latter, concerned to contribute to Emperor [[Heraclius]]' war effort against the Persians, tried to appropriate some of the church's wealth to that end, an attempt which John firmly resisted and which ended in Nicetas' apology.

John voiced opposition to Heraclius' early attempts at promoting [[monoenergism]] as a compromise solution to the schism over [[Chalcedon]], but did not participate in the major controversies that soon developed. He was forced to flee Alexandria by the Persian invasion of Egypt in 619. Returning to Cyprus, he died soon thereafter. A few years later much of John's work of reconciliation with the Non-Chalcedonians of Egypt was undone by the violent persecution instituted by Cyrus, who combined both imperial and ecclesiastical authority as dual prefect and patriarch of Alexandria.

*[http://www.goarch.org/en/chapel/saints.aspsaints_view?contentid=288 John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria] ([[GOARCH]])