- Our Holy Fathers Athanasius the Great (373) and Cyril (44), Patriarchs of
Alexandria
- Saint Athanasius, pillar of Orthodoxy and Father of the Church, was born
in Alexandria in275, to pious Christian parents. Even as a child, his piety and devotion
to the Faith were so notable that Alexander, the Patriarch of the city, took Athanasius
under his protection. As a student, he acquired a thorough education, but was more
interested in the things of God than in secular learning, and withdrew for a time into the
desert to sit at the feet of Saint Anthony (January 17), whose disciple he became and
whose biography he later wrote. On returning to Alexandria, he was ordained to the
diaconate and began his public labors for the Church. He wrote his treatise On the
Incarnation, when he was only twenty. (It contains a phrase, still often quoted today,
that express in a few words some of the depths of the Mystery of the Incarnation: God
became man that man might become god.)
-
Just at this time Arius, a priest in Alexandria, was promoting his enticing view
that the Son and Word of God is not of one essence with the Father, but a divine
creation of the Father. This view, which (as Athanasius realized) strikes at the very
possibility of mankind's salvation, gained wide acceptance and seemed for a time to
threaten the Christian Faith itself. In 325, the Emperor Constantine the Great convoked
a Council of the Church at Nicaea to settle the turmoil that had the Arian teaching had
spread through the Church. Athanasius attended the Council, and defended the
Orthodox view so powerfully that he won the admiration of the Orthodox and the
undying enmity of the Arians. From that time forth his life was founded on the defense
of the true consubstantiality (homoousia) of the Son with the Father.
-
In 326, not long before his death, Patriarch Alexander appointed Athanasius to
be his successor, and Athanasius was duly elevated to the patriarchal throne. He was
active in his pastoral role, traveling throughout Egypt, visiting churches and
monasteries, and working tirelessly not only to put down the Arian heresy, but to
resolve various schisms and moral declines that effected his territory.
-
Though the Arian heresy had apparently been condemned once and for all at
Nicea, Arius had many powerful allies throughout the Empire, even in the Imperial
court, and Athanasius was soon subjected to many kinds of persecution, some local,
some coming from the Imperial throne itself. Though he was Patriarch of Alexandria
for more than forty years, a large amount of that time was spent in hiding from
powerful enemies who threatened him with imprisonment or death. Twice he fled to
Rome for protection by the Pope, who in the early centuries of the Church was a
consistent champion of Orthodoxy against its various enemies. From his various hiding
places, Athanasius issued tracts, treatises and epistles which helped to rally the faithful
throughout Christendom to the Orthodox cause.
-
In 366, the Emperor Valens, fearing a revolt of the Egyptians on behalf of their
beloved Archbishop, officially restored Athanasius to favor, and he was able to spend
the last seven years of his life in peace. Of his forty-seven years as Patriarch, about
seventeen were spent in hiding or exile. He reposed in peace in 373, having given his
entire adult life, at great suffering, to the defense of the Faith of Christ.
- With St Athanasius, the Church commemorates St Cyril (Kyrillos), also
Archbishop of Alexandria (412-44). His lot was to defend the Faith against the heretic
Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who denied that Christ in his Incarnation truly
united the divine with the human nature. Cyril attempted in private correspondence to
restore Nestorius to the Christian faith, and when this failed he, along with Pope
Celestine of Rome, led the defense of Orthodoxy against Nestorius' teaching. Saint
Cyril presided at the Third Ecumenical Council in 431, at which the Nestorian error was
officially overthrown. After guiding his flock for thirty-two years, he reposed in 444.
source: http://www.abbamoses.com
|
