CATECHESIS & DAILY INSPIRATION
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ST. CYRIL, ARCHBISHOP OF ALEXANDRIA (444)
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Reflections and Daily Inspiration
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“The candles lit before icons of saints reflect their ardent love for God for Whose sake they gave up everything that man prizes in life, including their very lives, as did the holy apostles, martyrs and others. These candles also mean that these saints are lamps burning for us and providing light for us by their own saintly living, their virtues and their ardent intercession for us before God through their constant prayers by day and night. The burning candles also stand for our ardent zeal and the sincere sacrifice we make out of reverence and gratitude to them for their solicitude on our behalf before God.”
- St. John of Kronstadt
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FATHER'S DAY MESSAGE
SUNDAY, JUNE 21, 2020
by V. Rev. Nikola Ceko, Episcopal Deputy & Chancellor, Dean of Saint Steven’s Cathedral, Alhambra, California
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Memory of Saints of Mount Athos
on June 21
Mount Athos is the orchard of the Virgin Mary. Many fragrant spiritual flowers have bloomed in the sanctified soils of Mount Athos which were blessed by the Theotokos herself.
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The Feast of the Saints of America
From its humble beginnings in 1794, when a small group of missionaries landed on Kodiak Island, Alaska, Orthodoxy in America has expanded to comprise a church of over two million faithful. On the second Sunday after Pentecost, each local Orthodox Church commemorates all the saints, known and unknown, who have shone forth in its territory. Accordingly, the Orthodox Church in America remembers the saints of North America on this day.
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SAINT OF THE DAY
JUNE 22 / JUNE 9
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Saint Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria (444)
Cyril was of noble birth and a close relative of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, after whose death he was consecrated patriarch. During his lifetime he led three bitter struggles: with the Novatianist heretics, with the heretic Nestorius, and with the Jews in Alexandria. The Novatianists had their origin in Rome and were named after Novatian the presbyter, the leader of the heresy. They took pride in their virtues, walked about dressed in white garments, forbade second marriages, and held that prayers should not be said for those who had committed a mortal sin, nor should those who had once fallen away from the Church be received back into the Church, even if they bitterly repented. Cyril defeated them and drove them out of Alexandria together with their bishop. The struggle with the Jews was more difficult and bloody. Since the time that Alexander the Great had founded the city, the Jews had been strong in Alexandria. Their hatred toward Christians was vicious and in- sane. They killed Christians by treachery, by poisoning, and by crucifying them on crosses. After a long and difficult struggle, Cyril succeeded, during the reign of Emperor Theodosius the Younger, in driving the Jews out of Alexandria. However, his struggle against Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, was resolved at the Third Ecumenical Council [Ephesus, 431]. Cyril himself presided at this Council and at the same time represented Pope Celestine of Rome at the request of the latter, who was unable to attend the Council because of old age. Nestorius was condemned, anathematized and banished by the emperor to the eastern boundary of the empire, where he died a horrible death (for worms consumed his tongue, by which he had blasphemed the Most-holy Theotokos, calling her Christotokos). After the completion of this struggle, Cyril lived in peace and zealously tended Christ’s flock. He went to the Lord in the year 444. It is said that he composed the prayer “O Theotokos and Virgin, Rejoice.”
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