Athanasius the Great

**Athanasius of Alexandria** also called **Athanasius the Great**, **Athanasius the Confessor** or **Athanasius the Apostolic** was a Church Father and Doctor of the Church. He was Patriarch of Alexandria From 8 June 328 to 2 May 373. He is remembered for fought hard to defend the Catholic doctrine against the Heresy of Arianism defended by his Creator Arius and his followers in the First Council of Nicaea.

## Biography

### Life and thought

*Main article: Arianism*

Athanasius was born in Alexandria in Egypt at the end of the third century at the time when the last great persecutions by the Roman Empire were ending and a few years before the adoption by the same empire of Christianity as the official religion. It grew in this city that, among the three largest cities of the ancient world, it was certainly the most turbulent and the most culturally rich: there were present, besides a substantial traditional Christian school, also many Christians considered heretics, Gnostics, Nestorians and numerous the pagans, including the devotees of the God Serapis.

The life of Athanasius was inextricably linked to the Great effort that the Catholic Church had to sustain in those years to define the Trinity of God .

Still a deacon, he accompanied his bishop Alexander to the Council of Nicea in 325, commissioned by Emperor Constantine I to settle the question raised by the preaching of Arius, also of Alexandria, concerning the nature of Christ. With the Greek word ὁμοούσιος (homoousios, consubstantial), in that Council, the perfect equality of the Word and God the Father was clearly affirmed, a Word considered by the Catholic Church "generated" and not "created", in clear antithesis to the thought of Arius who instead preached the creation of the Word from God and therefore the denial of the divinity of Christ.

### Exile

Athanasius was a witness and strenuous defender of this principle throughout his life. Because of this testimony he had to undergo at least five exiles in the years from his appointment as Bishop and Patriarch of Alexandria in Egypt in 328, just thirty, to 362. In addition to these, he was the victim of intrigue and slander of all kinds and for a time it was even abandoned by the Pope, also a victim of intrigues orchestrated and imposed by the emperor. For this he is remembered by the Catholic, Orthodox and Coptic Churches as Athanasius contra mundum ("Athanasius against the world"), for his unwavering loyalty to these principles in the face of everything and everyone.

In his first exile in Trier between 335 and 337 he completed his double treatise Against the Gentiles On the Incarnation, in which he gave his reasons for the true identity of Christ, "true God" and "true man". At that time Christianity struggled to find the truth, with a Church of Rome more firm around Pope Julius I on the principles of the Council of Nicea , while the Church of the East, more speculative and culturally vibrant, presented many faces ranging from Arianism pure infinite shades of semi-Arianism. With the death of Constantine in 337, the Empire was divided among his three sons, including Constantius II, who was interested in theology. Like his father, Constantius also let himself be persuaded by Eusebius of Nicomedia , head of the semi-Arians, to fight the theories of Athanasius accusing her of sabellianism, a heresy advocated by Marcellus of Ancyra.

At that moment Costanzo was not yet the only emperor. Brother Constans I, who reigned in the East, in agreement with Pope Julius I, reunited the Council of Sardica (today's Sofia ) in 343. Present Athanasius and in the absence of the Pope, under the direction of Hosius of Cordoba , after the withdrawal of the Eusebians, the Nicene Creed and rehabilitated Athanasius was reaffirmed, which could return to Alexandria in 346. The previous year, in a Council held in Milan, the Church of the West condemned the doctrines of Photinus and his master Marcellus of Ancyra.

In 350 Costante died and Costanzo remained the sole owner of the Empire. Eusebius of Nicomedia was dead as well as Arius, but two bishops, Basilio of Ancira and Acacius of Caesarea , whose doctrines had been condemned in the council of Sardica, entered into the emperor's graces and convinced him to call a whole series of Councils to put ending the Photinus heresy of Sirmium , in reality with the aim of making people say that Athanasius's doctrine was nothing but a disguised Photinianism. Since in the West Athanasius' ideas were more sustained, the emperor, pushed by his semi-Aryan advisers, multiplied in Italy and in Gaul the Councils destined to destroy that claim of heresy, called of the Niceans, that is, supporters of the Council of Nicea of ​​325. In these Councils the bishops were forced to choose between the condemnation of Athanasius or exile.

On the death of Pope Julius I in 352 he was succeeded by Liberius who, not having accepted to condemn Athanasius, was first exiled to Beroea in Thrace (now Veria in Greece) and then replaced by an antipope named Felix II 355-365. With various councils organized by the emperor between 351 and 359, held in Sirmium, the usual residence of Constantius, attempts were made to contrast various formulas with that of Athanasius. Catholics went from the most dissimilar term, that of the Aryans who defined Christ in Greek ἀνόμοιος anomoios , (dissimilar from the Father), called anomei , to the term closest to that of Athanasius, that of ὁμοιούσιος homoiousios (similar in substance to the Father), supported by thehomeousians . Intermediate concept was that of the omei who were content to call it ὅμοιος homoios (similar to the Father). In 358 it was possible to have Liberius Athanasius condemned by the use of the term consubstantial . Still various councils were held in complete disorder and without any clarity until the emperor's death in 361.

This short and troubled period caused Saint Jerome to pronounce the famous phrase: "The universe groaned in the astonishment of seeing itself become an Aryan!" The new emperor, Julian the Apostate , with an edict of 361, allowed all Christian bishops of non- Aryan faith to return from exile. So also for Athanasius, who in the last exiles had had to take refuge in the desert near the anchorite monks of the desert, already known in his youth and always admired by him. Athanasius wrote the life of one of the most famous: St. Anthony the Abbot.

At the end of this troubled existence, Athanasius had the satisfaction of being able to summon in 362 in his Alexandria a Council of the East which, with great test of spirit, put an end to all dogmatic disputes, by simply reviving the decrees of the Council of Nicea eschewing any discussion of terms. He died on May 2 nd 373 in his bed, he who had for a good part of his life had to roam exiled and refugee.

But his body had not yet finished roaming. Originally buried in Alexandria, his body appeared in the Middle Ages in Venice, a city famous for the collection of relics. But the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria, Pope Shenouda III in May 1973 obtained from Pope Paul VI the transfer of the body to the Coptic cathedral of Saint Mark in Cairo in Egypt.

The life of Athanasius of Alexandria was inspired by the German polemicist Johann Joseph von Görres for the polemical-apologetic work " Athanasius, Cologne affairs " in favor of the Archbishop of Cologne , Clemens August Droste zu Vischering, imprisoned in 1837 for defending the principles of the Catholic Church against the state .

Gregory of Cappadocia (Anti-patriarch)
Peter II

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