Athanasius, Bishop and Confessor

Today our Synod remembers that towering giant among the fathers, St. Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria in Egypt. Athanasius was a champion of Nicene Orthodoxy - affirming the eternal deity of the Word, the Son of God - at a time when many were embracing Arianism (the teaching that the Son was a special creation of God). He suffered numerous exiles for his confession, but would not yield. He knew that it was founded on the unshakable foundation of God's holy Word, the very witness of the Apostles themselves. "In the beginning was the Word." His classic "On the Incarnation of the Word of God" is a must read! About him it was said: "Athanasius contra mundum" - Athanasius against the world. He died on this day in the year 373, the gentle, kind and loving bishop of Alexandria. "Wherefore the Word, being incapable of death, assumed a mortal body, that He might offer it as His own in place of all, suffering for the sake of all through His union with it, 'might bring to nought him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver them who all their lifetime were enslaved by the fear of death.'" Incarnation, par. 20