Athanasius Contra Mundum: A Saint for a Time of Confusion, by Peter M.J. Stravinskas

By Peter M.J. Stravinskas, Catholic World Report, May 2, 2024

Reverend Peter M.J. Stravinskas founded The Catholic Answer in 1987 and The Catholic Response in 2004, as well as the Priestly Society of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, a clerical association of the faithful, committed to Catholic education, liturgical renewal and the new evangelization. Father Stravinskas is also the President of the Catholic Education Foundation, an organization, which serves as a resource for heightening the Catholic identity of Catholic schools.

Most of the bishops went into that Council as Arians; it was the indefatigable persistence of Athanasius that changed the course of events.

Our saint of the day, Athanasius of Alexandria, was probably born in that city between 296 and 298 A.D., a hub of the Greco-Roman world at that time, culturally, politically, intellectually, and morally. It was in that city that, centuries earlier, Jewish scholars rendered the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, giving us the Septuagint text, used by all the authors of the New Testament. Athanasius had a stellar education, fluent in both Greek and Coptic—although he admits ignorance of Hebrew.

Patriarch Alexander of that city ordained Athanasius a deacon in 319 and brought him to the Council of Nicea in 325 as his secretary, where his theological expertise was only outshone by his personal courage and integrity. We must recall that it was at that first ecumenical council in history that the Church had to confront the heresy spawned by the priest Arius, whose Christology was not only off-kilter but which had spread like wildfire, causing St. Jerome to declare: “The whole world groaned and marveled to find itself Arian.” …