Ss Athanasius the Great and Cyril of Alexandria

Saints commemorated

Saint of the day

Ss Athanasius the Great and Cyril of Alexandria

Athanasius the Great (c. 296 – 373) was Archbishop of Alexandria, the champion of the Nicene faith and, with Basil the Great, one of only two Eastern fathers whom the Church styles by universal consent "the Great." Present at the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) as a young deacon, he became through a long episcopate the tireless defender of the Council's confession that the Son is homoousios — "of one essence" — with the Father, against the Arianism that for two generations captured emperors, courts, and councils. Five times driven from his see and some seventeen years an exile, he held the faith when almost the whole world had gone over to Arius, so that his name became a proverb — Athanasius contra mundum, "Athanasius against the world." He wrote the classic statement of the Incarnation, On the Incarnation of the Word; the Life of Antony, which carried the monastic ideal through the whole Church, East and West; and, in his thirty-ninth Festal Letter of 367, the first listing of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament exactly as the Church now receives them. He died in peace at Alexandria on May 2, 373, having outlived his persecutors and secured the triumph of Orthodoxy. He is kept on January 18 together with Cyril of Alexandria, and on May 2, the day of his repose.
Saint of the day

Cyril of Alexandria

Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376 – 444) was Archbishop of Alexandria and the greatest of the Church's Christological doctors — the "Seal of the Fathers," whose defence of the unity of the person of Christ gave the Church her language for the mystery of God made man. As president of the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus in 431, he led the condemnation of Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople, who by dividing Christ into two subjects had refused to the Virgin the title Theotokos, "she who gave birth to God." Against him Cyril taught the hypostatic union: that the eternal Word of God, without ceasing to be God, truly made human flesh and a human soul his own, so that the one who was born of Mary, suffered, and rose is one and the same Son — God the Word incarnate — and Mary is therefore in all truth the Mother of God. His writings — the letters to Nestorius, the treatise On the Unity of Christ, the commentaries on John and Luke — became the charter of Orthodox Christology, honoured at Chalcedon and by the whole Church, Eastern and Oriental alike. He reposed at Alexandria on June 27, 444. His own feast is June 9; he is kept again on January 18 with Athanasius the Great, the two hierarchs of Alexandria, and on June 9.

British Isles and Ireland

St. Deicola of Bangor (6th C)
St. Wilfrid (Ulfrid), missionary and martyr in Sweden (1028)

Troparia & kontakia

Apolytikion

Shining forth in the works of Orthodoxy and quenching every false belief, ye became victors crowned with triumph; enriching all things by your piety and greatly adorning the Church, ye worthily found Christ God, who grants great mercy unto all.

Apolytikion

Shining forth in the works of Orthodoxy and quenching every false belief, ye became victors crowned with triumph; enriching all things by your piety and greatly adorning the Church, ye worthily found Christ God, who grants great mercy unto all.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Having planted the doctrines of Orthodoxy, thou didst cut away the thorns of false belief, and didst multiply the seed of the faith by the rain-shower of the Spirit, O venerable one; therefore we hymn thee, O Athanasius.

Kontakion — Tone 4

Rending asunder the snares of the heresies by the power of Christ through thy divine words, thou didst enrich the Church, O Cyril, cutting down all the tares of Nestorius; wherefore thou standest with the choirs of Angels, fervently interceding with Christ, O blessed one, that forgiveness of sins be granted unto all.

Kontakion — Tone 2

Having planted the doctrines of Orthodoxy, thou didst cut away the thorns of false belief, and didst multiply the seed of the faith by the rain-shower of the Spirit, O venerable one; therefore we hymn thee, O Athanasius.

Kontakion — Tone 4

Rending asunder the snares of the heresies by the power of Christ through thy divine words, thou didst enrich the Church, O Cyril, cutting down all the tares of Nestorius; wherefore thou standest with the choirs of Angels, fervently interceding with Christ, O blessed one, that forgiveness of sins be granted unto all.

Troparion — Tone 3

Thou wast made a pillar of Orthodoxy, upholding the Church with divine doctrines, O Hierarch Athanasius; for proclaiming the Son to be of one essence with the Father, thou didst put Arius to shame. O venerable Father, entreat Christ God to grant us great mercy.

Troparion — Tone 5

Adorned with divine wisdom, thou wast shown forth as leader of the Third Council, and didst cast down the terrible Nestorius, O Father, and didst brightly proclaim the pure Virgin to be Theotokos, O Cyril the Hierarch, glory of the Alexandrians and teacher of the Church.

Troparion — Tone 3

Thou wast made a pillar of Orthodoxy, upholding the Church with divine doctrines, O Hierarch Athanasius; for proclaiming the Son to be of one essence with the Father, thou didst put Arius to shame. O venerable Father, entreat Christ God to grant us great mercy.

Troparion — Tone 5

Adorned with divine wisdom, thou wast shown forth as leader of the Third Council, and didst cast down the terrible Nestorius, O Father, and didst brightly proclaim the pure Virgin to be Theotokos, O Cyril the Hierarch, glory of the Alexandrians and teacher of the Church.

Readings

Epistle

Hebrews 3.5-11, 17-19

⁵And Moses verily was faithful in all his house, as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken after; ⁶But Christ as a son over his own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end. ⁷Wherefore (as the Holy Ghost saith, To day if ye will hear his voice, ⁸Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness: ⁹When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years. ¹⁰Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways. ¹¹So I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest.) ¹⁷But with whom was he grieved forty years? was it not with them that had sinned, whose carcases fell in the wilderness? ¹⁸And to whom sware he that they should not enter into his rest, but to them that believed not? ¹⁹So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.

Gospel

Luke 20.27-44

²⁷Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection; and they asked him, ²⁸Saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any man’s brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. ²⁹There were therefore seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and died without children. ³⁰And the second took her to wife, and he died childless. ³¹And the third took her; and in like manner the seven also: and they left no children, and died. ³²Last of all the woman died also. ³³Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife. ³⁴And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: ³⁵But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: ³⁶Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection. ³⁷Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. ³⁸For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him. ³⁹Then certain of the scribes answering said, Master, thou hast well said. ⁴⁰And after that they durst not ask him any question at all. ⁴¹And he said unto them, How say they that Christ is David’s son? ⁴²And David himself saith in the book of Psalms, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, ⁴³Till I make thine enemies thy footstool. ⁴⁴David therefore calleth him Lord, how is he then his son?