Augustine followed the Manichaean religion in his student days. Under the guidance of Saint Ambrose, Augustine studied the Holy Scriptures. and was converted to Christianity by the preaching and example of Ambrose of Milan. He was baptized at Easter in 387. The Word of God produced in his soul a radical crisis; he accepted holy Baptism, gave all his wealth to the poor and was tonsured as a monk.
In 388 Augustine returned to north Africa and created a monastic foundation at Tagaste for himself and a group of friends. In the year 391 Valerian, Bishop of Hippo, ordained Saint Augustine a priest in Hippo, now known as Annaba, in Algeria. He became a famous preacher where he was noted for combating the Manichaean heresy. More than 350 of his sermons, believed to be authentic are preserved.
In 396 he was made vicar bishop of Hippo by Bishop Valerian, which gave Augustine the right of succession on the death of Bishop Valerian. Shortly thereafter the bishop tied and Augustine became the Bishop of Hippo, and remained as bishop in Hippo until his death in 430.
Saint Augustine left his monastery, but continued to lead a monastic life in the episcopal residence. He left a Rule (Regula in Latin) for his monastery that has led him to be designated the "Patron Saint of Regular Clergy," that is, parish clergy who live by a monastic rule.
During his 35 years as bishop, St Augustine wrote many works devoted to combating the Donatist, Manichaean and Pelagian heresies.
Augustine died on August 28, 430, during the siege of Hippo by the Vandals. He is said to have encouraged its citizens to resist the attacks, primarily on the grounds that the Vandals adhered to heretical Arian Christianity.
The Fifth Ecumenical Council, held in Constantinople in A.D. 553, listed Augustine among other Fathers of the Church, though there is no unqualified endorsement of his theology mentioned, just as there is none for most saints of the Church):
We further declare that we hold fast to the decrees of the four Councils, and in every way follow the holy Fathers, Athanasius, Hilary, Basil, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, Ambrose, Theophilus, John (Chrysostom) of Constantinople, Cyril, Augustine, Proclus, Leo and their writings on the true faith.
(Dr. Fr. Michael Azkoul, The Influence of Augustine of Hippo on the Orthodox Church )
In the acts of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, he is called the "most excellent and blessed Augustine" and is referred to as "the most wise teacher." In the Comnenian Council of Constantinople in 1166 he is referred to as
"Ό Αγίος Αυγουστίνος - "Saint Augustine."
Despite these acclamations, most of his works were not translated into Greek until circa 1360 by by Demetrios Cydones and some Orthodox Christians identify errors in his theology—especially those in his Triadology which gave rise to the Filioque addition to the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed—and regard him as being one of the major factors in the Great Schism between the Church in the East and in the West. Thus, there are those among the Orthodox who regard Augustine as a heretic, although there has never been any Conciliar condemnation of either him or his writings.
More moderate views regard Augustine as
 | a theological writer who made too many mistakes to be included among the Church Fathers but still a saint, |
| a
theological writer among many in the
early Church (but not a saint), and |
| a theological writer with, perhaps, the title "Blessed" before his name. |
It should be noted, however, that the Orthodox Church has not traditionally ranked saints in terms of "blessed" or "saint" (i.e., suggesting that the latter has a greater degree of holiness than the former). Saint "rankings" are usually only differences in kind (e.g., monastics, married, bishops, martyrs, etc.), not in degree. The practice of ranking by degree is much more characteristic of the Roman Catholic tradition.
There are at least two books explicitly dealing with the issue of Augustine's place in Orthodoxy: The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church by Fr. Seraphim Rose (ISBN 0938635123), which is generally favorable toward Augustine, citing his importance as a saint in terms of his confessional and devotional writings rather than in his theology, and The Influence of Augustine of Hippo on the Orthodox Church by Dr. Fr. Michael Azkoul (ISBN 0889467331), which tends to see Augustine as the root of all Western Christendom's errors. (There is also a condensation of this book into a booklet titled Augustine of Hippo: An Orthodox Christian Perspective.) The former's cover (shown on right) includes a traditional Greek icon of Augustine, where he is labelled as "Ό Αγίος Αυγουστίνος"—"Saint Augustine."
There is unfortunately within the Orthodox Church a minority of teachers who, in their zeal to guard the Faithful from some of the errors in St. Augustine's teachings, have gone to the extreme of maligning him and impious heresy-hunting. In their often legitimate criticism of the writings of this blessed Church Father from Hippo, they irreverently seek to prove that he was never, nor should be, considered a Saint of the Orthodox Church. They admonish the Faithful to disavow him as a Father. Moreover, they often wrongly attribute heretical teachings of later "Augustinians" to St. Augustine himself. In this way a few of these people even try to show that he was a heretic. This is shocking and absolutely incorrect, as this compilation and the works cited herein will prove. -- The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church by Father Seraphim Rose (ISBN 0938635123),
Another view is expressed by Christos Yannaras, who descibed Augustine as "the fount of every distortion and alteration in the Church's truth in the West" (The Freedom of Morality, p. 151n.).
