Holy Fathers Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria
St. Athanasius was bishop of Alexandria and one of the most illustrious defenders of the Christian faith. He was born at Alexandria in about the year 297.
At the Council of Nicaea, in 325 A.D., he appears prominently in connection with the Arian dispute, attending the council, not as one of its members (who were properly only bishops or delegates of bishops), but merely as the attendant of Patriarch Alexander. In this capacity, he was apparently allowed to take part in its discussions arguing earnestly for the apostolic doctrines. Within five months after his return, Alexander died and his friend and archdeacon Athanasius, at 30 years of age, was chosen to succeed him as bishop of Alexandria.
The first few years of the episcopate of Athanasius were tranquil, but the storms in which the remainder of his life was passed soon began to gather around him. The Council of Nicaea had settled the creed of Christendom, but had by no means settled the divisions in the church that the Arian controversy had provoked. Arius himself still lived, and rapidly regained influence over the Emperor Constantine. The result of this was a demand made by the emperor that Arius should be re-admitted to communion. Athanasius stood firm, and refused to have any communion with the advocates of a “heresy that was fighting against Christ.”
Emperors and bishops alike exiled him because of his truth in Orthodoxy, and heretics like Arius and his followers. If imperious in temper and inflexible in dogmatic determination, Athanasius had yet a great heart and intellect, enthusiastic in devotion to Christ, and in work for the good of the church and of mankind.
His chief distinction as a theologian was his zealous advocacy of the essential divinity of Christ as co-equal in substance with the Father. This was the doctrine of the Homoousion, proclaimed by the Nicene Creed, and elaborately defended by his life and writings. Whether or not Athanasius first suggested the use of this expression, he was its greatest defender; and the universal doctrine of the Trinity has ever since been more identified with his “immortal” name than with any other in the history of the church and of Christian theology.
St. Cyril was the nephew of Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria, who educated him from his youth. He succeeded to his uncle’s position in 412, but was deposed through the intrigues of the Nestorian heretics.
Nestorius, a presbyter of the Church of Antioch, called the Mother of God not “Asdvadzadzin” (Theotokos or Birth-giver of God) but rather “Khristorditsa” (Christotokos or Birth-giver of Christ), implying that she gave birth not to God, but only to the man Christ. This lead to the convening of the Holy Ecumenical Council in the city of Ephesus in 441. Two hundred bishops from the Christian world, including Armenia, attended. St. Cyril presided at this Third Ecumenical Council that censured the Nestorian blasphemy against the Most Holy Mother-of-God. His wise words demonstrated the error of this false doctrine. St Cyril departed to the Lord in the year 444.