On June 22, the Church celebrates the memory of Saint Cyril of Alexandria, a great Father of the Church whose theological legacy lies at the foundation of one of the most important elements of our Church’s teaching: the doctrine of the Most Holy Virgin Mary as the Theotokos, the Mother of God.
The date of his departure to God is easy to remember: Saint Cyril reposed on June 22, 444. It is on this very day that his memory is celebrated in Churches that follow the Julian calendar. 22 and 444—what remarkable symmetry!
Remembering the feast days of the saints is an exercise in virtue, a spiritual discipline no less important than fasting or the reading of one’s prayer rule. The saints are friends of God, and for remembering His friends, the Lord grants a special grace to human beings.
The principal achievement of Saint Cyril was his victory over the theological teaching of Nestorius, the Bishop of Constantinople. Nestorius taught that Mary was not the Mother of God, but merely the Mother of Christ the Messiah; in his own terminology, she was Christotokos, the Mother of Christ. At first glance, one may wonder what essential difference this makes. Yet the theological genius of Saint Cyril discerned a heresy in this assertion. If Mary is the Mother of the Messiah but not the Mother of God, then a permanent gap remains between the divine and human natures in Christ Jesus. The implication is that Jesus is indeed the God-Man, but that His divine-humanity was not an accomplished reality from the moment of the Annunciation—that is, from His conception by the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit—but something that gradually came into being. It is as though the One who came into this world to make us “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) Himself stood in need of such participation. The teaching of Nestorius was condemned at the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus (431), which Cyril himself organized and presided over.
Nestorius was deposed and exiled to the desert. He attempted to defend himself but was not heard. The way Cyril ultimately dealt with Nestorius is not beyond reproach. Time and history were largely responsible. “Time, please stop,” sings Rammstein in the song of that name.
At that time there was only one man on earth who might have resolved this theological problem differently. His name was Saint Augustine. In Augustine’s life there is an episode in which, through the power of persuasion alone, without condemnations or coercive measures, he succeeded in convincing a theologian named Leporius, whose views resembled those of Nestorius. Moreover, Saint Augustine received from Emperor Theodosius II an invitation to attend the Ecumenical Council in Ephesus. Yet he died on August 28, 430, and did not live to attend the Council.
Quite recently, scholars discovered correspondence between Augustine and Cyril concerning the question of grace. Augustine sought Cyril’s support in condemning the heretic Pelagius. The latter maintained that human beings are saved by their own efforts, while grace plays only an auxiliary role. We do not know whether Cyril ever replied to Augustine, nor what his response may have been. We do know, however, that Pelagius was condemned at the Third Ecumenical Council. It also turned out that he had sought the support of Nestorius—and ultimately received it.
Modern scholars often ask whether he was really as guilty as history has portrayed him, and whether he truly thought about Christ in the way that was later attributed to him. Here, thanks to Pelagius, an interesting parallel emerges. Just as a human being can perfect himself through his own efforts, while grace may help but is neither required nor obliged to do so, so too Christ, if we are to believe what is said about Nestorius and his theology, traveled the path from messiahship to divine-humanity over the course of his own lifetime.
Here we find not only a parallel between the heresies of Nestorius and Pelagius, nor merely an indirect indication that Nestorius may indeed have been guilty of what he was accused of. Rather, it points to the great mystery revealed through St. Augustine’s teaching on grace and St. Cyril’s teaching on Christ: that the human being is Christ-like, and that God is the future of every human person. For the true, perfect, and fully realized human being is the God-Man, Jesus Christ.
He is perfect not because He made an effort or improved Himself, but because in Christ Jesus, within human history and time, the Son of God Himself lived, lives, abides, and will remain forever at the right hand of the Father.
Although the historical feast day of Saint Augustine—the day of his death—falls on August 28 (September 10 according to the Julian calendar), in the Orthodox Church his memory is celebrated on June 28. I have still not been able to discover the reason for this. As a result, the feast days of Cyril and Augustine in the Orthodox Church—June 22 and June 28 respectively—are separated by only a few days, less than a week. This is a beautiful and touchingly modest example of the communion of saints reflected in the Church’s calendar.