Athanasios & Cyril, Patriarchs of
Alexandria
Reading
In the half-century after the First Ecumenical
Council held in Nicea in 325, if there was one
man whom the Arians feared and hated more intensely than any other, as
being able to lay bare the whole error of their teaching, and to marshal,
even from exile or hiding, the beleaguered forces of the Orthodox, it was
Saint Athanasios the Great. This blazing lamp of Orthodoxy, which
imperial power and heretics' plots could not quench when he shone upon
the lampstand, nor find when he was hid
by the people and monks of Egypt, was born in Alexandria about the year
296. He received an excellent training in Greek letters and especially in
the sacred Scriptures, of which he shows an exceptional knowledge in his
writings. Even as a young man he had a remarkable depth of theological
understanding; he was only about twenty years old when he wrote his
treatise "On the Incarnation." Saint Alexander, the Archbishop
of Alexandria, brought him up in piety, ordained him his deacon, and
after deposing Arius for his blasphemy against the Divinity of the Son of
God, took Athanasios to the First Council in Nicea
in 325. Saint Athanasios was to spend the remainder of his life laboring
in defense of this Holy Council. In 326, before his death, Alexander
appointed Athanasios his successor.
In 325, Arius had been condemned by the Council of Nicea; yet through his hypocritical confession of
Orthodox belief, Saint Constantine the Great was persuaded by Arius's
supporters that he should be received back into the communion of the
Church. But Athanasios, knowing well the perverseness of his mind, and
the disease of heresy lurking in his heart, refused communion with Arius.
The heresiarch's followers then began framing false charges against
Athanasios. Finally Saint Constantine the Great,
misled by grave charges of the Saint's misconduct (which were completely
false), had him exiled to Tiberius (Treves) in Gaul in 336. When Saint
Constantine was succeeded by his three sons Constantine II, Constans, and Constantius,
in 337, Saint Athanasios returned to Alexandria in triumph. But his
enemies found an ally in Constantius, Emperor
of the East, and he spent a second exile in Rome. It was ended when Constans prevailed with threats upon his brother Constantius to restore Athanasios (see also Nov. 6).
For ten years Saint Athanasios strengthened Orthodoxy throughout Egypt,
visiting the whole country and encouraging all: clergy, monastics, and
lay folk, being loved by all as a father. After Constans's
death in 350, Constantius became sole Emperor,
and Athanasios was again in danger. On the evening of February 8, 356,
General Syrianus with more than five thousand
soldiers surrounded the church in which Athanasios was serving, and broke
open the doors. Athanasios's clergy begged him to leave, but the good
shepherd commanded that all the flock should withdraw first; and only
when he was assured of their safety, he also, protected by divine grace,
passed through the midst of the soldiers and disappeared into the deserts
of Egypt, where for some six years he eluded the soldiers and spies sent
after him.
When Julian the
Apostate succeeded Constantius in 361,
Athanasios returned again, but only for a few months. Because Athanasios
had converted many pagans, and the priests of the idols in Egypt wrote to
Julian that if Athanasios remained, idolatry would perish in Egypt, the
heathen Emperor ordered not Athanasios's exile, but his death. Athanasios
took a ship up the Nile. When he learned that his imperial pursuers were
following him, he had his men turn back, and as his boat passed that of
his pursuers, they asked him if he had seen Athanasios. "He is not
far," he answered. After returning to Alexandria for a while, he
fled again to the Thebaid until Julian's death
in 363. Saint Athanasios suffered his fifth and last exile under Valens
in 365, which only lasted four months because Valens, fearing a sedition
among the Egyptians for their beloved Archbishop, revoked his edict in
February, 366.
The great Athanasios passed the
remaining seven years of his life in peace. Of his fifty-seven years as
Patriarch, he had spent some seventeen in exiles. Shining from the height
of his throne like a radiant evening star, and enlightening the Orthodox
with the brilliance of his words for yet a little while, this
much-suffering champion inclined toward the sunset of his life, and in
the year 373 took his rest from his lengthy sufferings, but not before
another luminary of the truth -- Basil the Great -- had risen in the
East, being consecrated Archbishop of Caesarea in 370. Besides all of his
other achievements, Saint Athanasios wrote the life of Saint Anthony the
Great, with whom he spent time in his youth; ordained Saint Frumentius
first Bishop of Ethiopia; and in his Paschal Encyclical for the year 367
set forth the books of the Old and New Testaments accepted by the Church
as canonical. Saint Gregory the Theologian, in his "Oration On the
Great Athanasios", said that he was "Angelic in appearance,
more angelic in mind; ... rebuking with the tenderness of a father,
praising with the dignity of a ruler ... Everything was harmonious, as an
air upon a single lyre, and in the same key; his life, his teaching, his
struggles, his dangers, his return, and his conduct after his return ...
he treated so mildly and gently those who had injured him, that even they
themselves, if I may say so, did not find his restoration
distasteful."
Saint Cyril was also from Alexandria, born about the
year 376. He was the nephew of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, who
also instructed the Saint in his youth. Having first spent much time with
the monks in Nitria, he later became the
successor to his uncle's throne in 412. In 429, when Cyril heard tidings
of the teachings of the new Patriarch of Constantinople, Nestorius, he
began attempting through private letters to bring Nestorius to renounce
his heretical teaching about the Incarnation. When the heresiarch did not
repent, Saint Cyril, together with Pope Celestine of Rome, led the
Orthodox opposition to his error. Saint Cyril presided over the Third
Ecumenical Council of the 200 Holy Fathers in the year 431, who gathered
in Ephesus under Saint Theodosius the Younger. At this Council, by his
most wise words, he put to shame and convicted the impious doctrine of Nestorius,
who, although he was in town, refused to appear before Cyril. Saint
Cyril, besides overthrowing the error of Nestorius, has left to the
Church full commentaries on the Gospels of Luke and John. Having
shepherded the Church of Christ for thirty-two years, he reposed in 444.
Apolytikion
of Athanasios and Cyril, Patriarchs of Alexandria
Third Tone
Shining forth
with works of Orthodoxy, ye quenched every false belief and teaching and
became trophy-bearers and conquerors. And since ye made all things rich
and with true piety, greatly adorning the Church with magnificence,
Athanasios and wise Cyril, ye both have worthily found Christ God, Who doth grant great mercy unto all.
Kontakion
of Athanasios and Cyril, Patriarchs of Alexandria
Fourth Tone
O great
Hierarchs of piety and brave champions of the Church of Christ, you watch
over all who sing, "Save us who in faith honor you, O
Compassionate."
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