Saint Cyril of Alexandria
- 27 June
- formerly 28 January
- formerly 9 February
Profile
Nephew of Theophilus the Patriarch. Monk. Priest. Bishop and patriarch of Alexandria, Egypt on 18 October 412. Suppressed the Novatians. Worked at the Council of Ephesus. Fought against Nestorius who taught the heresy that there were two persons in Christ. Catechetical writer. Wrote a book opposing Julian the Apostate. Greek Father of the Church. Doctor of the Church.
Born
- 376 at Alexandria, Egypt
- 444 at Alexandria, Egypt of natural causes
- relics in Alexandria
- book, pen or scroll, indicative of his work as a writer
- Blessed Virgin Mary holding the Child Jesus, representing his advocacy of the doctrine of Mary as Mother of God
Readings
By nature, each one of us is enclosed in his own personality, but supernaturally, we are all one. We are made one body in Christ, because we are nourished by one flesh. As Christ is indivisible, we are all one in him. Therefore, He asked His Father “that they may all be One as We also are one.” – Saint Cyril of Alexandria
That anyone could doubt the right of the holy Virgin to be called the Mother of God fills with astonishment. Surely she must be the Mother of God if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, and she gave birth to him! Our Lord’s disciples may not have used those exact words, but they delivered to us the belief those words enshrine, and this has also been taught us by the holy fathers. The divinely inspired Scriptures affirm that the Word of God was made flesh, that is to say, he was united to a human body endowed with a rational soul. He undertook to help the descendants of Abraham, fashioning a body for himself from a woman and sharing our flesh and blood, to enable us to see in him not only God, but also, by reason of this union, a man like ourselves. It is held, therefore, that there is in Emmanuel two entities, divinity and humanity. Yet our Lord Jesus Christ is nonetheless one, the one true Son, both God and man; not a defied man on the same footing as those who share the divine nature by grace, but true God who for our sake appeared in human form. We are assured of this by Saint Paul’s declaration: “When the fullness of time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law and to enable us to be adopted as sons. – from a letter by Saint Cyril of Alexandria
MLA Citation
- “Saint Cyril of Alexandria“. CatholicSaints.Info. 26 December 2018. Web. 19 January 2019. <>