Standing with angels

 

St Gregory of Nazianzus(329-390), a close friend of St Basil the Great [see Yet another early witness to the Eucharist], is known in the East as Gregory the Theologian.  After studying with Basil in Athens, they returned to their native Cappadocia (now Eastern Turkey) to serve the Lord. It was during the time of the Arian heresy which refused the full divinity of Christ, Gregory was reluctantly consecrated bishop of Sasima, a small Cappadocian town. Following the death of his father, the bishop of Nazianzus, he briefly overseed that church. 

Later he became Archbishop of Constantinople, the most prestigious see in the East and second only to Rome in honour. He played a leading role at the First Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D. which completed the creed that we commonly call the Nicene Creed, often recited at the Sunday Eucharist by Catholics and Orthodox Christians.

Soaked in the divine nature

Source: ChristianB

Today we commemorate St Cyril of Alexandria who lived from 376-444A.D. in what is, today, Egypt.  He was no stranger to controversy and if some accounts are to be believed he did not suffer heretics gladly.   He presided at the Council of Ephesus which affirmed Mary as the Theotokos or God-bearer (or Mother of God).  For one particular overview of some of these controversies refer to here. 

Cyril made an important contribution to theology in helping to deepen the Church’s understanding of both the human and divine nature of Christ. The joining of these two natures is so mystically powerful that Cyril uses images of fire to describe how the divine nature spreads out from the body of the God-man into the human race transforming iron but never destroying it.  Human nature is ‘divinised’ or transformed and transfigured.