Memhir Esuendale:
Feasts of Nehasse 18
✞✞✞On this day we commemorate the departure of St. Alexander [Archbishop of the city of Alexandria], a scholar of the Church✞✞✞
✞✞✞In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen!✞✞✞
✞✞✞Saint Alexander, Scholar✞✞✞
✞✞✞ The saint was a great defender of the faith and his birth place was Egypt in the 3rd century. And his good deeds and teachings were beneficial to the faithful. When he was a kid, he went to Peter, the seal of the martyrs, to learn about Christianity.
✞✞✞St. Peter was the seventeenth patriarch of Alexandria and a scholar. He is considered, in history, as the last martyr of the Era of the Persecution. Even though there were many students under him, three were mentionable.
1. St. Alexander (the kind)
2. Achillas (the lover of flattery)
3. Arius (the enemy of the Church)
✞From these three, Arius labored to destroy the Church. And Achillas was unconcerned. However, St. Alexander, laboring in fasting and prayer, tried to imitate his teacher St. Peter.
✞As the time was an era of persecution, the Saint with his teacher passed through many things. And when Arius recanted [his faith] and was excommunicated by St. Peter, he [St. Alexander] tried to advise him [Arius], as a friend, to return. But, St. Peter knowing the wickedness of Arius from the Lord, called his disciple Alexander and warned him.
✞He [St. Peter] said, “After I die, Achillas will take my place. Because he befriends Arius, he will be smitten in his sixth month. But, you be shielded from the poison of Arius.” And after he said this, soldiers beheaded St. Peter. And this happened in 311 A.D.
✞Immediately, Achillas was enthroned. And as said, because he befriended Arius, he was smitten on his sixth month on the See. In the same year, St. Alexander was ordained as the nineteenth patriarch (Archbishop) of Alexandria (Egypt).
✞The good fortune of his time was that the age of tribulation had passed. But, the misfortune or the very difficult thing was the increase of the followers of Arius than was expected. The saintly scholar had no rest or sleep for the seventeen years he was in his office.
✞On one side, he serves His Lord by subjecting his body to fasting and praying. And on the other, he teaches the people day and night. He taught orally and in writing (letters) to rescue the faithful from the venom of Arius.
✞With the help of his bright disciple St. Athanasius, they humiliated Arius and his followers. Beyond giving spiritual answers to each heretical question, he anathematized Arius not only once or twice but three times in councils.
✞Because the matter was not concluded by these, the Emperor, St. Constantine, called for an ecumenical council to be held at Nicaea. And in 325 A.D. (318 E.C/ Ethiopian Calendar), around two thousand three hundred and forty eight (2348) people gathered from all around the world. From these, the three hundred and eighteen had holiness upon scholarship. And they had passed through many tribulations for the faith.
✞The Holy Spirit chose St. Alexander to lead this holy council. And the scholar coordinated the righteous fathers, debated, and was victorious over Arius who had thousands of followers.
✞At the end of the council, because Arius said, “I will not return”, they excommunicated him; wrote the creed; made twenty canons; authored a liturgy; decided the canon of the bible and so, dispersed after laying the Church on a rock.
✞And the leader for all these fruits was St. Alexander.
✞He gained honor by witnessing that our Lord Jesus Christ is, “one [one Lord Jesus Christ], God - the Son of God, very God.” The basis of our faith is this. If one does not believe Christ is, “Creator of the heavens and the earth, very God, one in essence with the Father” there will not be Christianity let alone salvation [in/for him/her].✞After the Council of Nicaea, St. Alexander lived in the upright way fighting the good fight and consoling the believers. Every day he used to read and pray the Gospel with love and a pillar of light used to descend for him.
