Saint Cyril of Alexandria

Cyril was born in Egypt around 370 and was patriarch of Alexandria from 412 until his death. He is one of the greatest theologians of the early Church, and also one of the figures it is hardest to write about without telling only half the story. As a theologian he was decisive. At the Council of Ephesus in 431 he opposed Nestorius, who denied Mary the title of Mother of God, arguing that she had given birth only to the man Jesus. Cyril argued that in Christ you cannot separate things that way, and the formulation of the Incarnation he worked out then is still considered valid today: it earned him the title of Doctor of the Incarnation. He ran that council himself, in every sense. The other half is this. As patriarch he had, says the historian Socrates Scholasticus, “much more power than his predecessor had had,” and he stepped outside the limits of a bishop. He persecuted the Novatians, the Jews and the pagans of Alexandria until they were nearly erased from the city. And in 415 the philosopher and mathematician Hypatia was killed in the street by a mob: some historians, ancient and modern, point to him as the one who ordered it, others clear him, but no one denies that the climate that made that crime possible was his. He died in Alexandria on June 27, 444. He is a Doctor of the Church. If your name is Cyril, today is your name day.