St. Athanasius

May 2 is the feast of St. Athanasius (c. 296-373), bishop of Alexandria and Doctor of the Church. The foremost defender of the Council of Nicaea (325), he spent forty-five of his forty-six years as bishop in exile or in flight, banished by five emperors and pursued by the Arian bishops who had the support of the imperial court. His On the Incarnation, written before he was thirty, is the classic statement of the doctrine of the two natures of Christ; his Life of Anthony, written around 360, spread the ideal of the desert hermit through the Latin West.

Athanasius was present at Nicaea as a young deacon, secretary to Bishop Alexander of Alexandria, and the council's definition of the Son as homoousios — "of one being with the Father" — became his life's defence. As bishop from 328, he refused to reinstate the Arian Arius, and was exiled to Trier (335-337), to Rome (339-346), and to the desert of Egypt (356-362, 365-366). In Rome he was received by Pope Julius I, who cleared him of the charges brought against him at the Council of Tyre (335).

Athanasius is the patron of the Coptic Orthodox Church — the Church of Alexandria — and his feast on May 2 is kept by Catholics, Orthodox, and Copts alike. He was proclaimed Doctor of the Church in 1568 by Pope Pius V. From Alexandria, where he was bishop, to Rome, where he was received in exile, the May 2 feast is the feast of the man who said Athanasius contra mundum — Athanasius against the world.