The Life
Cyril was born around 376 in a small Egyptian town near Mahalla el-Kobra. His uncle Theophilus would rise to become Pope of Alexandria. Cyril received the classical Christian education of late-antique Alexandria and spent some years as a young monastic in the ascetical communities of Nitria and Scetis, where he was formed by the great desert fathers. When Pope Theophilus reposed in 412, Cyril was elected to succeed him. He was about thirty-six. He served as Pope for thirty-two years. The theological crisis that defined his episcopate began in 428 when Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, began preaching against the title Theotokos for the Mother of God. Cyril composed theological responses, presided over the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus in 431, which deposed Nestorius and defended the apostolic teaching about the unity of Christ’s Person. He reposed in peace on June 27, 444. The Eastern tradition has rightly given him the titles “Seal of all the Fathers” and “Pillar of the Faith.”
Saint Cyril spent some years as a young monastic in the ascetical communities of Nitria, Scetis, and the Egyptian Thebaid, where he was formed by the great desert fathers. He learned the deep contemplative tradition of Egyptian monasticism that descended from Saint Anthony the Great and Saint Macarius. He memorized large portions of the Holy Scriptures. He absorbed the ascetical theology of the desert. The monastic formation he received during these years shaped his entire subsequent theological and pastoral work. The Christological precision of his later theology was rooted in the deep prayer of his desert years. The ecclesial courage of his confrontation with Nestorius was rooted in the ascetical discipline he had learned from the desert fathers.
When Pope Theophilus reposed on October 15, 412, Saint Cyril was elected to succeed him. He was about thirty-six. His election was contested by the supporters of the Archdeacon Timothy. The early years of his episcopate were marked by political struggle. Alexandria was the intellectual capital of the Eastern Roman world, with a complex mixture of Christians of various theological parties, a large Jewish community, and a still-significant pagan population centered on the schools of philosophy. Conflicts among these communities sometimes erupted into violence. He served as Patriarch for the next thirty-two years until his repose in 444.
The theological crisis began in 428 when Nestorius, a presbyter from Antioch, was elected Patriarch of Constantinople. Nestorius brought with him the Antiochene Christological tradition, which emphasized the distinction between the divine and human natures of Christ. He began preaching against the title Theotokos (“God-bearer”) for the Most Holy Virgin Mary, arguing that she should be called only Christotokos (“Christ-bearer”) since she had given birth not to God but only to the man Christ to whom God was conjoined. The theological implication was that Christ’s divine and human natures were not united in a single Person but were rather two distinct subjects acting in concert, with the divine Logos dwelling in the human Jesus as in a temple. Saint Cyril recognized in Nestorius’s teaching a threat to the entire Christian Faith.
Saint Cyril wrote a long series of theological letters to Nestorius attempting to persuade him to abandon his teaching. Nestorius refused. Saint Cyril sent epistles to the clergy of Constantinople warning of the rising heresy, to Pope Celestine of Rome, and to the other Patriarchs. He composed his Five Books against Nestorius and his famous Twelve Anathemas. Pope Celestine of Rome held a Roman synod in August 430 that condemned Nestorius’s teaching and authorized Saint Cyril to act on Rome’s behalf. The Emperor Theodosius II convened the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus in 431. Some 200 bishops attended. Saint Cyril presided. Nestorius arrived but refused to appear before the Council despite repeated summonses. After examining Nestorius’s teaching in his absence, the Council deposed him from his see and condemned his teaching as heretical. The Council affirmed the apostolic teaching about the unity of Christ’s Person and the title Theotokos for the Most Holy Virgin.
After the Council of Ephesus, tensions remained between the Alexandrian and Antiochene parties. John of Antioch had arrived late at Ephesus, had refused initially to accept the Council’s deposition of Nestorius, and had held a counter-synod that had attempted to depose Saint Cyril. Through the mediation of the Emperor Theodosius II and Bishop Acacius of Beraea, Saint Cyril and John of Antioch were eventually reconciled in 433. They jointly issued the Formula of Reunion, which affirmed the teaching of Ephesus about the unity of Christ’s Person and the title Theotokos while also incorporating Antiochene language about the distinction of the natures. The reconciliation demonstrated that Saint Cyril’s theological convictions were not founded on personal animosity toward the Antiochene tradition but on deep concern for the apostolic Faith.
The synaxarion records a providential vision at Saint Cyril’s death-bed. He had earlier had a vision of himself in a heavenly temple where angels and saints were chanting and worshipping the Theotokos. When he had approached the Theotokos to worship her, Saint John Chrysostom had prevented him because Saint Cyril had not commemorated Chrysostom in the Alexandrian Liturgy (his uncle Theophilus having unjustly deposed Chrysostom). The Theotokos had interceded for Saint Cyril, asking Chrysostom to forgive him for her sake. Saint John Chrysostom had answered: “By your intercession, Lady, I do forgive him.” Saint Cyril repented, restored Chrysostom to the Alexandrian diptychs, and celebrated a feast in his honor. At Saint Cyril’s death the Theotokos alone visited him, in honor of his lifelong defense of her title.
The apostolic foundation of Saint Cyril’s entire Christological theology is the simple statement of Saint John’s Gospel: “And the Word was made flesh.” The eternal Word who was with God and was God (John 1:1) truly took on flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary. He did not merely come to dwell in a particular man Jesus; he truly became man, taking on a complete human nature into the unity of his eternal divine Person. The title Theotokos for the Virgin Mary depends entirely on this apostolic insight. She gave birth to the One who is the Word made flesh — to a single divine-human Person, not to two persons. To deny her this title is to deny the Incarnation. To affirm it is to confess the apostolic Faith.
Saint Cyril reposed in peace in Alexandria on June 27, 444. He was about sixty-eight years old. He had been Patriarch of Alexandria for thirty-two years. His relics rest at the Coptic Orthodox Cathedral in Cairo. He is commemorated on June 9 in the Eastern Orthodox tradition (the date associated with his repose in some early sources and with the commemoration of the Council of Ephesus) and also (with Saint Athanasius) on January 18 as one of the great Alexandrian theological fathers. The Roman Catholic Church declared him a Doctor of the Universal Church in 1882. The Eastern Christian tradition has rightly given him the titles “Seal of all the Fathers” and “Pillar of the Faith” for the theological synthesis his work brought to the entire patristic tradition.
Cyril gives the Christian Church a particular gift: the early Eastern dramatization that the apostolic Faith requires theological precision in the formulation of its central mysteries. He defended the title Theotokos for the Mother of God at the Third Ecumenical Council in 431. He insisted on the unity of Christ’s Person against the Nestorian fracturing of it. He composed the Christological treatises that established the foundation of the entire Eastern Christian theological tradition. He was reconciled with the Antiochene party once the apostolic Faith had been securely defined. We may not be theologians by profession. But we are all called to know the apostolic Faith and to defend it against the distortions of our own time.