Alexander, Saint, Patriarch of Alexandria

ALEXANDER, Saint, Patriarch of Alexandria. - He held the see from 312 to 326. When Arius, a member of his Church, began to spread among the Alexandrian clergy and monks his doctrines on the Word, he immediately perceived their opposition to the traditional faith, and sought by persuasive and conciliatory means to correct him. When these means proved vain, around 320 he convened a council, attended by about a hundred bishops from Egypt and Libya, in which Arius and his partisans were solemnly condemned. Since Arius sought refuge and protection with other bishops, A. addressed numerous letters to them to put them on their guard. Of some seventy, which comprised an initial collection, only two have come down to us, through Socrates (Hist. eccl., I, 6) and Theodoret (Hist. eccl., I, 4), very important for the history of the beginnings of the Arian heresy. As Arius persisted in propagating his ideas, A. sought the intervention of Pope Sylvester, who sent Hosius to the East. Constantine himself personally wrote a letter to A. to settle the dispute, for which he held him and Arius equally at fault (Eusebius, Vita Constantini, II, 64-72; PG 20, 1038-47). All was in vain. There followed the Council of Nicaea, in which A. had a place and a leading role, assisted by Athanasius, his deacon. He returned to his see, furnished with a letter of recommendation from the Fathers of the Council and confirmed in his patriarchal rights over the churches of Egypt, Libya and the Pentapolis. Urged by Eusebius of Nicomedia and by Constantine himself to receive Arius back, he refused energetically. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on 26 February, following an erroneous identification by Florus; the Greeks venerate him on 29 May.

Gaetano Corti