He was one of the greatest Doctors of the Catholic Church. He was only a deacon at the Council of Nicea, in 325, when he courageously denounced Arius as a heretic for denying the full divinity of Jesus Christ. Saint Athanasius became Patriarch of Alexandria, in Egypt, and was its bishop for forty-six years. He suffered great hardships and persecutions. He was excommunicated by practically every influential bishop in the East and five times banished from his See, to which he always returned. Saint Athanasius is one of the four great Doctors of the Universal Church. The other three are Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Augustine and Saint Gregory the Great. A creed has been named in honor of Saint Athanasius. It is known as the Athanasian Creed, and along with the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, it is one of the three greatest dogmatic professions of Faith the Catholic Church uses in its liturgy. Saint Athanasius has been called “the Father of Orthodoxy” and “the Champion of Christ’s Divinity.” Saint Gregory Nazianzen calls Saint Athanasius “a pillar of the Church.” So courageous was his defense of the Catholic Faith and its dogmas against the weak and sometimes heretical bishops of his day that this has given rise to the well-known saying “Athanasius against the world!” (Athanasius contra mundum). This means that one courageous priest or bishop professing the true Faith can be fully suppressed or silenced by no one.
Saint Athanasius the Great
