Saint Athanasius

Athanasius was born in Alexandria in Egypt between 293 and 295 and became its bishop in 328. He held that see for forty-five years, seventeen of them spent in exile: he was sent into exile five times. The reason was always the same, and it’s worth understanding, because it sounds like a dispute for specialists and it wasn’t. Arius held that the Son was a creature, the first and the highest, but created all the same. Athanasius held that he was God, of the same substance as the Father. If Arius had won, Christianity would have become a different religion. For a long time Arius had on his side the emperor, most of the Eastern bishops, and the wind of history. Athanasius didn’t. Hence the phrase that goes with him: *Athanasius contra mundum*, Athanasius against the world. Every time the mood at court shifted, they threw him out; every time he came back, and his people in Alexandria took him back. He wrote a great deal, and among his works there is one that was hugely successful throughout the Christian world: the Life of Anthony, the desert monk he had known personally. It was that book that introduced monasticism to the West. He died in Alexandria on May 2, 373. He is one of the four Fathers of the East who bear the title “the Great,” and he is a Doctor of the Church. If your name is Athanasius, today is your name day.