They didn't "start" the Gnostic rot that undergirds so many of them,
There is no trace of Gnosticism in any recognized Church Father venerated as a Father of the Church by the Roman Catholics, traditional Anglicans, Confessional Lutherans, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox or the Assyrian Church of the East.
Some people allege that St. Augustine was influenced by the Manichaen religion he converted from under the influence of his Christian mother and St. Ambrose, but this is not true, as anyone with an intimate knowledge of the Manichaean faith will recognize the extreme difference between their doctrines and those of St. Augustine, and recognize this as an anti-monastic smear.
And of all of the Church Fathers, only St. Augustine has been, to my knowledge, accused of Gnostic ideas by any substantial number of people.
I’m sorry but its not appropriate to engage in ”lighthearted teasing“ over those who we as Orthodox Christians regard as holy men, on a par with the Prophets and Patriarchs of the Old Testament, in some cases Equal to the Apostles for their work in spreading the Gospel to new lands (for example, St. Gregory the Illuminator, St. Nino and Saints Cyril and Methodius), and who in a great many cases were martyrs and confessors, who were horribly tortured and gave their life to preserve the faith, for example, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. Polycarp, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, St. Maximus the Confessor and indeed St. John Chyrsostom (who was death marched for criticizing the Empress for wasting money on a solid gold commode while people were starving in Constantinople).
These Church Fathers (and in the case of St. Nino, a Church Mother) are holy, bearing the image of Christ, having picked up their cross to follow Him, and having made their lives an icon of his life. Glorified in death, their lives are an icon of the life of Christ and a demonstration of the power of God’s grace to transform us and sanctify us entirely( the doctrine of Theosis, which John Wesley translated as “entire sanctification”*
*Wesley had a particular gift for taking ancient Greek terminology, for instance, Presbyter and Bishop, and translating it into modern English, referring to Presbyters as Elders and to Bishops as Superintendents - both of which are correct (although in the most contemporary modern dialect, due to the bureaucratic connotations of the word “superintendent” i.e. the Superintendent of Public Works and so on, Overseer would be preferable in modern American culture). That being said, I would prefer to keep the Greek words alive where possible, because the Greek language was uniquely expressive; and it is not a coincidence that God chose that language as the language in which the New Testament would be written, for it contains words capable of encapsulating Hebrew theological concepts, such as the Memra, encoded into Greek as Logos, as well as those aspects of God clarified by our Lord, for example, the three prosopa of the Trinity.
