By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Saint Cyril was born of pious parents who professed the right faith, with which he himself was also brought up during the reign of Constantine, (the son of Constantine the Great).
When the Bishop of Jerusalem departed from this life, this blessed man was deemed worthy of the episcopal grace of the city, zealously contending for the apostolic dogmas.
At that time, Akakios, the Bishop of Caesarea in Palestine — who had been condemned by the Synod of Sardica because he would not tolerate confessing that the Son of God is consubstantial with the Father, and who had not accepted his deposition by it but still remained like a tyrant upon his throne — deposed the blessed Cyril from his own throne of Jerusalem and expelled him from it, because he was known to the Arian-minded emperor Constantius and from there derived his authority.
Cyril then went to Tarsus and was with the admirable Silouan. And when indeed a Synod was convened at Seleucia precisely for this reason, Akakios rose up, departed, and hastened to Constantinople. By what he said to the emperor, he provoked him against Cyril, whom he even condemned to exile.
When, therefore, Constantius died and Julian succeeded him in the empire, he, wishing to gain the favor of all the bishops who had been exiled by Constantius, ordered that they return to their Churches. Thus, together with all the others, Saint Cyril also regained his throne. And after he had shepherded well and in a God-pleasing manner the flock entrusted to him by the Church, and left to it as a memorial the Catecheses that bears his name, a little time after his return he reposed in blessedness.
In physical form he was of moderate stature, pale, with abundant hair, with a small nose, with a square face, with straight and even eyebrows, with a beard white, thick, and divided into two, resembling in his whole demeanor a rustic and country man.
The hymnographer Theophanes characterizes Saint Cyril as a multi-luminous star of the Church, and not just once. A star which the Lord Himself, as Sun, placed in the firmament of the Church, in order to illumine the hearts of the faithful with the rays of his teaching.
“Christ the Sun of the Church placed you as a multi-luminous star on high, O Cyril, enlightening the hearts of the faithful with the rays of sacred dogmas” (Ode 9).
This means that the light of the Saint was not a light coming from something of his own. It was a light that reflected Christ the Sun; therefore, not only with his words, but chiefly with his life, he constituted the guiding element for the faithful, even for the Fathers who were assembled in synod.
In other words, in his person and in his teachings all clergy and laity saw the true image of Christ, a fact which led to the natural disappearance of the heresies and the darkness that these always cause.
“With the wisdom of your words and with the radiance of your life, you shone, O admirable one, like a multi-luminous star in the midst of the Synod of the Fathers" (Sticheron of Vespers).
“You rose like a star and enlightened the faithful with the sacred splendors of your dogmas, and you led the heresies into darkness and completely dissolved them" (Sticheron of Vespers).
This double illumination of the Saint, by his teachings and by his life, indeed absorbs all the attention of the Hymnographer in his Canon for him. In most of the troparia he focuses on the Saint’s teaching gift, for which he was also characterized as the Catechist.
The Catecheses of Saint Cyril have remained classics, having as their content the faith of the Church and the meaning and the order of its mysteries, especially of Holy Baptism, Holy Chrismation, and the Divine Eucharist.
And in offering the faith he necessarily also turns against those who distort it, that is, the heretics. For the sacred poet, Saint Cyril is the lyre of the Holy Spirit, which sounded forth the melody of the coming of God as man, that is, of His divine manifestation.
“You appeared as a lyre of the all-holy Spirit, O divinely-minded one, sounding forth the melody of the manifestation of Christ” (Ode 3).
“Having received, O holy one, the stream of supramundane wisdom, your heart poured forth an abyss of teaching, drowning the minds of the impious” (Ode 4).
But the Hymnographer, as we said, also focuses on the light that his very life emits. And perhaps for this reason his Catecheses had and still have such great importance and power. Because they came from a man who approached the faith not theoretically and intellectually, but experientially and existentially.
That is, the teaching of the Saint was also the expression of his life. What he said was, as noted above, the radiance of the presence of the Holy Spirit within his heart, purified by ascetic struggle.
“ou adorned your soul with the forms of virtues, O Cyril, and thus made it receptive of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. As a result, from you came forth the abyss of wisdom which dries up the seas of heresies" (Ode 1).
The sacred Theophanes formulates what the Lord and our Church unceasingly proclaim: the word of a man, in order to have power — that is, to nourish the hearts of the faithful and to eliminate the delusion of the heretics — requires a purified heart, or a heart that struggles to erase its passions. Then indeed it reflects the rays of Heaven and is not simply speculative speech or, otherwise, “technology,” according to the expression of the Cappadocian Fathers.
For this reason the poet insists:
“You had in your mind, O Father, the fire of the fear of God, and therefore you burned up the material of pleasures" (Ode 7).
“You extinguished, O blessed one, with your tears the flame of the passions, and thus you kept the torch of your soul unquenched" (Ode 7).
It is therefore not by chance that the Hymnographer notes with emphasis that Saint Cyril fully utilized the teaching gift given to him by God, and thus increased it to such a degree that he entered triumphantly into Paradise.
“As a servant you increased the talent given to you, and thus you pleased the Master, O divinely-minded one, into whose hands you entrusted your most sacred spirit, O Cyril" (Sticheron of Vespers)
Therefore:
“Enter, with the offering of your talents, O Cyril, into the joy of your Lord" (Verses of the Synaxarion).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
