Saint Cyril of Jerusalem: Life, Works and Thought (Fr. George Florovsky)

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

 

By Fr. George Florovsky

 

I. Life.

There is much about Cyril's life which still remains unclear, and even during his lifetime he was regarded with doubt and suspicion. He was born about 315 in Jerusalem or its environs, and it not precisely known when he entered the clergy. By 348 he a deacon and in that year during Lent and on Holy Saturday delivered his famous Catechetical Lectures (divided into the introductory Procatechesis; eighteen Catecheses; and five Mystagogical Catecheses). Sometime between 348 and 351 he be me bishop of Jerusalem. Cyril's elevation was questioned by Jerome and Rufinus, and it has long been the subject of controversy because he was probably consecrated by Acacius of Caesarea and Patrophilus of Scythopolis; that is, by prelates whose orthodoxy was doubtful. In a letter addressed to Pope Damasus Cyril had to prove to the fathers at the council of Constantinople in 382 that his installation was legal and according to canon law (Theodoret, Historia ecclesiastica 5.9).

About 355 Cyril and Acacius quarreled over the precedence and jurisdiction of their respective metropolitanates. They probably disagreed on dogmatic matters as well. Cyril was deposed, and under pressure he withdrew first to Antioch and then to Tarsus. There he became a supporter of the homoiousians and sat with them at the council of Seleucia in 359. The council reinstated him as bishop of Jerusalem, but in the next year he was exiled again and returned only during the reign of Julian in 362. In 367 under Valens he was again forced to leave Jerusalem until 378, and nothing is known of his life during this period. In 381 Cyril participated at the Second Ecumenical Council. He died in 387. These few facts are all that is definitely known about his life.

The difference of opinion regarding Cyril is understandable in of the religious controversies which raged during his life . Cyril supported the anti-Nicene movement, first as a "Eusebian" and then as a "homoiousian," and this would be enough make his orthodoxy questionable. He sided with Meletius in Antioch, which explains why Jerome regarded him with such extreme suspicion. However, the testimony of the fathers at the Council of 382 dispels all doubt: "At various times he greatly struggled against Arianism." Theodoret later refers to him as a "defender of the apostolic faith."

 

Saint Cyril of Jerusalem in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

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.

March: Day 18: Saint Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem

 

March: Day 18:
Saint Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem
 
(The Commemoration of the Miraculous Appearance of the Life-Giving Cross in Heaven Serves To Confirm our Faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, whose memory is celebrated today, lived in the 4th century A.D. During the days of his episcopacy he witnessed special manifestations of God's mercy to the Christian race.

When the Christian Church, with the accession of Constantine the Great to the Roman throne, was freed from persecution that had lasted for almost three hundred years, new enemies appeared within Christian society, the heretics, the Arians, who falsely taught about the Divine dignity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Although the Arians were exposed at the First Ecumenical Synod and Arius himself was exiled, after the death of Constantine the Great, his son Constantius clearly patronized the heretics. Many Orthodox shepherds of the Church, including Saint Cyril, were persecuted and deposed from their episcopal thrones. The danger to the Orthodox Church was very great, but the Lord did not abandon His help to the zealots of truth.