St. Cyril of Jerusalem

Cyril was born around the year 315 and raised in Jerusalem. Well-educated, especially in the Scriptures, he was ordained a priest by the bishop of Jerusalem and given the task of catechizing during Lent those preparing for Baptism and during the Easter season the newly baptized. His Catecheses remain valuable as examples of the ritual and theology of the Church in the mid-fourth century.

Cyril was later caught up in the Arian heresy that denied the divinity of Christ. He was accused later of Arianism by St. Jerome, and ultimately vindicated both by the men of his own time and by being declared a Doctor of the Church in 1822.

He died in 386, shortly after the First Council of Constantinople, which completed the Creed often known as the Nicene Creed.  His Feast Day is March 18.