Cyril, Bishop of Jerusalem
18 March -- Commemoration
If celebrated as a Lesser Festival,
Common of Teachers, page 473
Born in about the year 315, probably in Caesarea, Cyril
became Bishop of Jerusalem when he was about thirty-four
years old. There he nurtured both the resident Christian
population and the many pilgrims, following the end of the
era of persecution, who were beginning to make their way
from all over Christendom to the places associated with
Christ. Cyril taught the faith in line with the orthodoxy
of the Council of Nicaea and the credal statement that
became associated with it. Though he found difficulty with
the word in that creed which described Jesus as being 'of
one substance with the Father', nevertheless he took the
side of the Nicene Party against the Arians, who denied the
divinity of Christ. His teaching through his
Catechetical Lectures, intended for those
preparing for baptism, show him to be a man profoundly
orthodox and sound, and his liturgical innovations to
celebrate the observance of Holy Week and Easter are the
foundation of Christian practices to this day. He died in
the year 386.