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Category:Saint Cyril of Alexandria
From The Work of God's Children
(born in 370, died in 444, Optional Memorial on June 27)[1]
- Cyril of Alexandria was born in 376 to a family in Alexandria, Egypt. He was the nephew of Theophilus[2], the Patriarch of Alexandria, and in 402 (another source says 403[3]) he went with him to Constantinople when his uncle deposed St. John Chrysostom from the patriarchate of Constantinople. After his uncle died on October 15, 412,[4] he was selected to succeed him, and was consecrated on October 18, 412. Some of his first acts as patriarch were to shut down the churches of the Novatian heretics and to expel the Jews from Alexandria after they had massacred Christians. Nestorius became the Patriarch of Constantinople in the winter of 427-428, and Cyril eventually became aware of the heretical teachings of Nestorius. After a period of correspondence between Nestorius and Cyril, Cyril asked Pope St. Celestine to intervene. Celestine responded that Cyril was to take the responsibility of admonishing Nestorius, and that Nestorius was to be excommunicated and deposed. Emperor Theodosius II summoned a council in Ephesus, and Cyril arrived with fifty of the bishops from his patriarchate, and bishops also came from Palestine, Crete, Greece, and Asia Minor. Nestorius also arrived in town, but the papal legates and Patriarch John of Antioch had not yet arrived when Cyril decided to begin the council on June 22, 431. He summoned Nestorius to appear, and when he did not, he pronounced Nestorius excommunicated and deposed. The papal legates arrived on July 10, 431, and confirmed the sentence of excommunication and deposition, but when Patriarch John of Antioch (who was on friendly terms with Nestorius) arrived with the bishops under him, he set up a council of his own and declared Bishop Memnon of Ephesus and Cyril deposed. Both sides appealed to the emperor, who took the peculiar position of considering all three bishops as deposed and arrested all three of them. The emperor also dissolved the council, but eventually released Cyril. He died in Alexandria, Egypt on either June 9 or June 27 of 444, and was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1882 by Pope Leo XIII.
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