Ss Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria

The Church joins in one feast the two greatest archbishops of Alexandria. Athanasius, present at Nicaea in 325 as a young deacon, spent his whole episcopate defending the confession that the Son is true God, of one essence with the Father. Exiled five times by four emperors — 'Athanasius against the world' — he never yielded, and his On the Incarnation and Life of Antony shaped both theology and monasticism for all time. Cyril, archbishop from 412, led the Council of Ephesus in 431 against Nestorius, insisting that the one born of Mary is the eternal Word Himself, so that the Virgin is rightly called Theotokos. His careful teaching that Christ is one person became the touchstone of later councils. Cyril's tenure had its controversies, and history records them honestly; but in these two bishops the Church received her clearest witnesses that God Himself has truly come to save us.

Ss Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria is also one of the Church Fathers — read their biography, works, and verse-by-verse commentary.