FLAVEL, JOHN (c. 1627-1691), English Presbyterian divine, was born at Bromsgrove in Worcestershire, probably in 1627. He was the elder son of Richard Flavel, described in contemporary records as “a painful and eminent minister.” After receiving his early education, partly at home and partly at the grammar-schools of Bromsgrove and Haslar, he entered University College, Oxford. Soon after taking orders in 1650 he obtained a curacy at Diptford, Devon, and on the death of the vicar he was appointed to succeed him. From Diptford he removed in 1656 to Dartmouth. He was ejected from his living by the passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662, but continued to preach and administer the sacraments privately till the Five Mile Act of 1665, when he retired to Slapton, 5 m. away. He then lived for a time in London, but returned to Dartmouth, where he laboured till his death in 1691. He was married four times. He was a vigorous and voluminous writer, and not without a play of fine fancy.
His principal works are his Navigation Spiritualized (1671); The Fountain of Life, in forty-two Sermons (1672); The Method of Grace (1680); Pneumatologia, a Treatise on the Soul of Man (1698); A Token for Mourners; Husbandry Spiritualized (1699). Collected editions appeared throughout the 18th century, and in 1823 Charles Bradley edited a 2 vol. selection.
FLAVIAN I. (d. 404), bishop or patriarch of Antioch, was born about 320, most probably in Antioch. He inherited great wealth, but resolved to devote his riches and his talents to the service of the church. In association with Diodorus, afterwards bishop of Tarsus, he supported the Catholic faith against the Arian Leontius, who had succeeded Eustathius as bishop of Antioch. The two friends assembled their adherents outside the city walls for the observance of the exercises of religion; and, according to Theodoret, it was in these meetings that the practice of antiphonal singing was first introduced in the services of the church. When Meletius was appointed bishop of Antioch in 361 he raised Flavian to the priesthood, and on the death of Meletius in 381 Flavian was chosen to succeed him. The schism between the two parties was, however, far from being healed; the bishop of Rome and the bishops of Egypt refused to acknowledge Flavian, and Paulinus, who by the extreme Eustathians had been elected bishop in opposition to Meletius, still exercised authority over a portion of the church. On the death of Paulinus in 383, Evagrius was chosen as his successor, but after the death of Evagrius (c. 393) Flavian succeeded in preventing his receiving a successor, though the Eustathians still continued to hold separate meetings. Through the intervention of Chrysostom, soon after his elevation to the patriarchate of Constantinople (398), and the influence of the emperor Theodosius, Flavian was acknowledged in 399 as legitimate bishop of Antioch by the Church of Rome; but the Eustathian schism was not finally healed till 415. Flavian, who died in February 404, is venerated in both the Western and Eastern churches as a saint.
See also the article Meletius of Antioch, and the article “Flavianus von Antiochien” by Loofs in Herzog-Hauck’s Real-encyklop. (ed. 3). For the Meletian schism see also A. Harnack’s, Hist. of Dogma, iv. 95.
FLAVIAN II. (d. 518), bishop or patriarch of Antioch, was chosen by the emperor Anastasius I. to succeed Palladius, most probably in 498. He endeavoured to please both parties by steering a middle course in reference to the Chalcedon (q.v.) decrees, but was induced after great hesitation to agree to the request of Anastasius that he should accept the Henoticon, or decree of union, issued by the emperor Zeno. His doing so, while it brought upon him the anathema of the patriarch of Constantinople, failed to secure the favour of Anastasius, who in 511 found in the riots which were occurring between the rival parties in the streets of Antioch a pretext for deposing Flavian, and banishing him to Petra, where he died in 518. Flavian was soon after his death enrolled among the saints of the Greek Church, and after some opposition he was also canonized by the Latin Church.
FLAVIAN (d. 449), bishop of Constantinople, and an adherent of the Antiochene school, succeeded Proclus in 447. He presided at the council which deposed Eutyches (q.v.) in 448, but in the following year he was deposed by the council of Ephesus (the “robber synod”), which reinstated Eutyches in his office. Flavian’s death shortly afterwards was attributed, by a pious fiction, to ill treatment at the hands of his theological opponents. The council of Chalcedon canonized him as a martyr, and in the Latin Church he is commemorated on the 18th of February.