It is amazing to see of list of the Doctors of the Church who were born in the 4th century. That list contains many of the great Church Fathers that shaped the early Church and shaped the faith that we believe in today: St Augustine of Hippo, St Jerome, St Ambrose, St John Chrysostom, St Basil the Great, and St Gregory of Nazianzus. To this list, we include the saint we celebrate today on his feast day: St Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril became Bishop of Alexandria, one of the great centers of learning in the ancient world. He was involved in fighting many of the heresies in the early Church, including Nestorianism; a heresy that asserted that Mary was not the Mother of God, because Jesus was fully divine and not human. Pope Celestine appointed Cyril to preside at the Council of Ephesus in 431, which declared Mary to be the God-bearer, the theotokos. Cyril was considered to be one of the greatest theological minds in the early 5th century. He spent the latter part of his life writing treatises that clarified the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation and that helped prevent the heresies of Nestorianism and Pelagianism from getting a long-term foothold in Christianity.
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