Saint Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem

Juvenal became bishop of Jerusalem c. 422, in the reign of Theodosius II, and held the see until his death c. 458. He took part in the Council of Ephesus in 431 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451; in his time the see of Jerusalem was raised to the rank of a patriarchate. After Chalcedon a monk named Theodosius, who rejected the council’s decisions, won the support of many Palestinian monks and of the empress Eudocia, widow of Theodosius II, and took over the see. Juvenal withdrew to Constantinople and returned about twenty months later, when the emperor’s order drove the usurper to Sinai.

According to the Prologue, when Marcian and Pulcheria asked him where the body of the Virgin Mary lay, Juvenal recalled the old account of her burial and sent them the sealed tomb-cloths.