Talk:Cyril of Alexandria
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[edit] Feast Day
Previous version listed a feast day of June 27, but the article later listed two different feast days in the Roman and Greek churches. What's correct? Stephen C. Carlson
His feast day is June 9th or June 27th because he died on either of these two days 172.150.86.116 16:59, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
Not sure, but I think it's June 27 (Roman Catholic) and June 9 (Eastern Orthodox). Anyone know? Alpheus 02:24, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Is that picture a joke!?
--Greasysteve13 06:24, 31 March 2006 (UTC)
In response to the writer that titled his comment, "Is that picture a joke?" It is not. It is an icon and very much honored among those who are partial to that style of iconography.
[edit] Problems
This article is sadly lacking as far as neutrality is concerned. Consider the following :
"We have to thank Saint Cyril for the firm and uncompromising stand he took with regard to the dogma of the Incarnation - an attitude which led to the clear statements of the great council over which he presided. We ought indeed to be grateful that we, in our generation, are left in no doubt as to what we should believe with regard to that holy mystery upon which we base our faith as Christians." "We have to thank" ? "We ought to be grateful" ? "Our faith as Christians" ?!? Hey, this is Wikipedia, not www.vatican.va ! The Neutral Point of View rule is a fundamental Wikipedia principle !
Romain Baudry
The whole article is taken from [1]. I'm not sure if that document is in the public domain or not. I suggest deleting this version, and using the catholic encyclopedia public domian entry for Cyril as a starting point for a new version.--Andrew c 21:49, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
- If you're going to spork content on Cyril from somewhere as a starting point, there's also content in the relatively-free-use Creative Common licensed article on OrthodoxWiki at http://www.orthodoxwiki.org/Cyril_of_Alexandria
--Aquarius Rising 23:18, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
This CYRIL, who was no saint by any extent of the Imagination, was the exact opposite to his uncle, the former Patriarch. He was a scheming, conniving and evil murderer( although he never 'durtied his own hands'). He urged riot and mayhem, burning and distruction amoung his extremist followers so that he might pursue his own extreme fanaticism. Anyone, behaving in like manner today would be "put away' for a long long time. I have never trusted those who say they do what they do "In the Name of God" what ever their Faith. We should take greater note of Justin Pollard and Howard Reid's research which is so evenly and fairly put in their book 'The Rise and Fall of Alexandria, Birthplace of the Modern Mind', unless there are those who would, like CYRIL, wish to stamp out moderate and balanced thought.
74.13.57.43 21:54, 28 January 2007 (UTC) Gillium Somerled Alister 2007
[edit] The Monastic Education of St. Cyril
The monastic education of St. Cyril is long disputed, and was never totally accepted.
[edit] This Article Must Be Changed
I agree that, even by biased standards, what we see must be changed. As a Lutheran, I follow the Western calendar, which commemorates his death on 27 June. It seems that the Eastern Church beats us by more than two weeks, observing his death on 9 June. Perhaps there's a Gregorian vs. Julian calendar difference here.
I could live with either of the aforementioned alternative texts. Another candidate might be a Mr. James Kiefer, who publishes hagiographies at http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html
Portions of what he writes at http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/06/27.html could be used as a base and I think I could persuade him to contribute or grant permission. Also, you might note what my church says at http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=3778
As for the "picture," I enjoy some variety in my icons and sort of like this one.
--Xrysostom 25 May 2006
[edit] "Citation Needed"s
There seem to be a lot of "citation needed" tags in the section about Cyril's bad behaviour against the Jews, implication in the murder of Hypatia and so on. I wonder if they're in there to cast doubt on the veracity of the paragraph. Anyway, I don't know how to do citations, but if anyone else can- Gibbon describes it all in The Decline And Fall. If anyone feels that that is dubious, I found this article on t'web, http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0508/reviews/oakes.html, a review of a book about Cyril which appears to be a sympathetic re-assessment of him- which seems to support Gibbon's report of the facts, and instead suggests that the behaviour of ancient figures shouldn't be assessed by modern post-enlightenment standards. Which may or may not be fair enough- nonetheless I think it's a further indication that the description of Cyril's behaviour is not inaccurate (at least as far as current historical knowledge indicates).82.71.30.178 00:20, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] "Patriarch" not "Pope"
Use of the term "Pope" in this article in reference to Cyril is misleading and inaccurate. The term Pope refers exclusively to the Bishop of Rome. The Pope is head of the whole Catholic church, while a Patriarch is head of only a particular region. The Pope is Supreme Pontiff, leader of the whole church. A Patriarch is usually seen as among equals with his fellow Patriarchs. (the use of the term Patriarch has changed over time. In St. Cyril's time, a Patriarch had considerable power over his brother bishops of the region. In modern times a Patriarch (in the Roman Catholic Church) has power similar to a metropolitan. The use of the term in Eastern Orthodox Church varies, but is never used interchangeably with "Pope".) See for more information the wikipedia article on the Pope. The head of the Eastern Orthodox Church in Alexandria is sometime referred to (inaccurately) as "Pope" of Eastern Orthodoxy. However, even this usage in reference to Cyril would be grossly anachronistic as the Eastern Orthodox Church did not exist as a entity separate from Rome until the Great Schism of 1054. It could be argued (though never known for sure) that Cyril himself would be offended by the title of Pope being imposed on him. His allegiance to the Holy See is clear in his correspondence with Pope Celestine. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fling13 (talk • contribs) 17:37, November 8, 2006.
- I've contacted John Mcguckin, Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies at Columbia University and author of "St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy". He had this to say:
The ancient title was Pope of Alexandria. Patriarch was attached to the Sees (Rome,Alexandria, Constantinople, Antioch and Jerusalem) after Chalcedon in 451 - so technically Pope is the more correct, though patriarch is also generally used.
- Scott5834 15:53, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
[edit] General Recommendations from Professor John Mcguckin
John Mcguckin, Professor of Byzantine Christian Studies at Columbia University, was kind enough to give some recommendations to improve the article. I'll try to fold some of these in, but any help would be great! (I'll strike out the ones I've finished with)
You refer to his knowledge of Latin...this used to be thought valid. Nowadays it is realized that he used one of the Alexandrian scribes (a university city) to translate all his dossier of complaints INTO Latin before sending them to Pope Celestine in Rome. This greatly impressed the Roman court (and was intended to). When Nestorius wrote to Rome he did so in Greek, and it was regarded as less respectful. So Cyril was a much better politician than Nestorius, but not necessarily versed in Latin (I think he did not know the language personally).You refer to his acceptance of the return of John Chrysostom. This should actually be a statement of delight at the return of the relics of St. John Chrysostom ( who had been dead already for a long time). Cyril was a very young man when he attended his uncle Theophilus at the synod which deposed John Chrysostom at Constantinople.- You refer to Cyril managing despite Orestes interventions, to expel the Jews. This is now commonly read by historians as a very large exaggeration of later Church historians. There is no evidence that the whole Jewish population of Alexandria was ever expelled at this time - in fact it continued on as an equally numerous group to the Christians until the Arab invasions of the 7th century. The rhetoric of these texts is often 'over the top'. The historian in question, Socrates, tries to depict Cyril as an insensitive rabble rouser. The Jews who were expelled were the ones he legally prosecuted for the alleged burning of a Christian church. The Christian mob retaliated by burning several synagogues but in the resulting legal fights for compensation Cyril secured his compensation AND secured the expulsion of the leaders of the Jewish area where the fight started - but the Jewish faction came off worse. That is more or less the history behind the event - but it is blown up in the histories (all of which are Christian one might add) to either throw a shine on Cyril as 'defender of faith' or to blacken him as dangerous mob-rouser. In my book you can see how I treated the Jewish incident and the Hypatia incident - as something in - between seeing him as innocent Joe, or proto Hitler.
- The Hypatia incident. Cyril was generally tarred as a 'murderer' of Hypata by sending his own 'clerical troops' to stone her to death. This was mainly in Victorian era text books that were heavily biased against him anyway - busy writing up a myth of dangerous bishops who must be kept out of church life (the Victorians were currently being scared witless by the Oxford movement and thinking that holy protestant england might soon be taken over by the arch-episcopal-villain of his holiness the pope). So they penned a lot of vitriol about church fathers, but little of it is based firmly on the evidence. The source you cite for Hypatia is very old and unreliable. So too is Charles Kinglsey whose novel Hypatia spread this charge widely, and is 95% romantic fiction not fact. One of Cyril's minor clerics was leading a mob in the streets which attacked the poor philosopher, known to be a public and vociferous critic of Christian life. They dragged her into a church to force her conversion and in the resultant fight, when she (probably said a few things not so nice to hear about Christ and his Church) they stoned her to death. It is a vile act but has the hallmarks of a mob act of spontaneous violence - for which this city was renowned in antiquity as the most violent of all the (very violent) cities of ancient times. To pin it personally on Cyril only follows if you have already agreed Cyril was guilty in advance. How to handle the Hypatia and the Jewish arson attack are always key factors in determining what kind of balance one has in dealing with Cyril.
I would add, if you like, a final paragraph synopsizing what his position was on theological matters - and why he thought the difference between him and Nestorius so important. Cyril regarded the embodiment of God in the person of Jesus Christ to be so mystically powerful that it spread out form the body of the God-man into the rest of the race, to reconstitute human nature as it was lived-in -Christ, into a graced and deified condition of the saints, one that promised immortality and transfiguration to believers. Nestorius, on the other hand, saw the incarnation as primarily a moral and ethical example to the faithful, to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Cyril's constant stress was on the simple idea that it was God who walked the streets of Nazareth (hence Mary was Theotokos or Mother of God), and God who had appeared in a Transfigured humanity. Nestorius was always more careful to speak of the distinct 'Jesus the Man' and 'the divine Logos' in ways that Cyril thought were too dichotomous.
[edit] Category:Anti-Semitic people
He belongs in the category since he personally led a mob plundering and destroying the synagogues. He also expeled the Jews from Alexandria so it should be a clear case of anti-Semitism. I'm suprised anyone can dubt it. // Liftarn
- I don't know whether Cyril was an anti-Semite or not. But I am reasonably sure that the body of the article does not establish that he meets the stated criteria for inclusion in Category:Anti-Semitic people. Just being involved in violence against Jews is not sufficient - the *motive* must also be established as being from a general hostility towards Jews in general. (General George Patton led a great deal of violence against Germans, but was he "anti-German"? No, he was just the leader of battles in which the enemy happened to be German.) Also note that it is not established that Cyril "expelled the Jews from Alexandria"; that is the take of some historians, while others disagree. If evidence exists that Cyril harbored personal hostility towards the Jewish people in general, and that these attitudes motivated his actions, then by all means provide the material and sources in the article and then the category will be a slam-dunk. Mrhsj 15:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)
- I should also have mentioned: please see item 3 above under "General Recommendations from Professor John Mcguckin" for detail on factual disputes about the conflicts in question. I took a stab at clarifying this in the main article recently but more needs to be done. Mrhsj 01:19, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
