Cyril of Jerusalem

Cyril of Jerusalem was a bishop and theologian of the fourth-century Church whose catechetical sermons constitute one of the principal surviving witnesses to the baptismal liturgy, creed, and eucharistic practice of Jerusalem in late antiquity. He was born in the early fourth century, most probably in or near Jerusalem, in the generation that saw Constantine’s building program transform the city into a Christian holy place. Almost nothing is recorded of his family or of his education, but his later writings display a close knowledge of Scripture, a measured style, and familiarity with the theological vocabulary of the Eastern Church. He was ordained deacon by Macarius of Jerusalem and priest by Maximus, and he appears to have been entrusted with the instruction of catechumens well before he became bishop.

He succeeded Maximus as bishop of Jerusalem about the middle of the fourth century. From the outset his position was insecure. Acacius of Caesarea, metropolitan of the province and a prominent Homoean, disputed both Cyril’s consecration and the rising status of the Jerusalem see. Cyril’s own doctrinal stance was firmly anti-Arian yet cautious: in the Catecheses he expounds the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit without employing the Nicene term homoousios, a silence that later critics and some modern scholars have interpreted in different ways. He was expelled from Jerusalem on three occasions—under Constantius II in the later 350s, again after a brief return, and for a prolonged exile under the Arian emperor Valens—so that he spent a substantial part of his episcopate away from his city. He was finally restored after Valens’s death in 378, during the reign of Theodosius I.

Cyril’s Catechetical Lectures, delivered in Jerusalem to those preparing for baptism and, in a second series, to the newly initiated, remain his chief work. The eighteen pre-baptismal lectures comment on the local baptismal creed article by article and give a vivid picture of Lenten discipline, exorcism, and the instruction of converts in a major pilgrimage city. The five Mystagogical Catecheses, which explain the rites of baptism, anointing, and the Eucharist, are of exceptional importance for the history of liturgy; their attribution to Cyril himself has been questioned, and some scholars assign them to his successor John, but they clearly reflect the Jerusalem tradition of his time. In a letter to Constantius II, Cyril also described a large luminous cross that was seen in the sky over Jerusalem in 351, an apparition he presented as a sign of divine favor.

In 381 Cyril attended the First Council of Constantinople, which reaffirmed the faith of Nicaea and whose decisions he accepted. He died in 386, after a last period of relatively peaceful administration of his see. Later tradition numbered him among the Fathers and, in 1883, Pope Leo XIII declared him a Doctor of the Church. His feast is observed on 18 March in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox calendars. Although the bishopric of Jerusalem was not granted patriarchal rank until the Council of Chalcedon in 451, Cyril’s long tenure, his liturgical writings, and his defense of the holy places helped secure Jerusalem’s place among the great sees of the Christian East.