October 30, 2022 - "St. Cyril of Alexandria"

We continue our series on the Doctors of the Church.  Today we meet St. Cyril of Alexandria (376?-444). Cyril succeeded his uncle Theophilus as the Patriarch (Archbishop) of Alexandria, Egypt in 414.  His early years were marked by impulsive, often violent actions.  He closed and often destroyed churches of the followers of the Novatian heresy.  Cyril participated in the deposing of St. John Chrysostom.  He confiscated Jewish property and expelled the Jews from Alexandria in retaliation for their attacks on Christians.  Early in his time as archbishop the pagan woman-philosopher Hypatia was brutally murdered.  Even though Cyril bore no personal responsibility for her death, her murder was certainly carried out by his supporters.
 
In 431 Cyril traveled to the Council of Ephesus where he played a very important role in the condemnation of Nestorius, the Patriarch (Archbishop) of Constantinople.  A very large part of Cyril’s writings deals with Scripture, but his letters and treatises against Nestorius are the ones that are most often read.  He wrote two wide-ranging books on the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible) in which he defended Christian, spiritual worship.  In this defense he borrowed categories from St. John’s Gospel and the Letter to the Hebrews.  A commentary on John and homilies on Luke are also extant.  Cyril also authored works on the Trinity.  St. Athanasius is a major source for those works.
 
Three letters that Cyril wrote to Nestorius at the time of the Council of Ephesus have proven to be very important.  Indeed, the Second Letter was given canonical status at the Council of Chalcedon.  One of his later works, On the Unity of Christ, is considered by many to be his most balanced of his Christological works.  Cyril stressed the unity of Christ’s person and spoke readily of the “one nature” of Christ.  But in 433, when Cyril was reconciled with patriarch John of Antioch, Cyril also admitted the orthodoxy of the phrase “two natures” in Christ.
 
In the fifth revised edition of Saint of the Day: Lives, Lessons, and Feasts, Leonard Foley, OFM and Pat McCloskey, OFM, make the following observation concerning Cyril of Alexandria:
“Lives of the saints are valuable not only for the virtue they reveal but also for the less admirable qualities that also appear.  Holiness is a gift of God to us as human beings.  Life is a process.  We respond to God’s gift, but sometimes with a lot of zigzagging.  If Cyril had been more patient and diplomatic, the Nestorian church might not have risen and maintained power so long.  But even saints must grow out of immaturity, narrowness and selfishness.  It is because they—and we—do grow, that we are truly saints, persons who live the life of God.”
 
Cyril of Alexandria and Cyril of Jerusalem were both named Doctors of the Church by Pope Leo XIII in 1882.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John