St. Athanasius

Bishop of Alexandria for forty-five years, Athanasius spent seventeen of them in exile for refusing to compromise with Arianism, the heresy that denied Christ's full divinity. His phrase Athanasius contra mundum — "Athanasius against the world" — became a watchword for fidelity in dark times. His treatise On the Incarnation is still read as a classic: "He became what we are that he might make us what he is."

As a young deacon he attended the Council of Nicaea in 325, where the Creed that bears the council's name was forged in the fire of theological debate. When he was elected bishop three years later, he became the foremost champion of that Creed, enduring five separate exiles under four different emperors rather than concede a syllable to the Arian party.

His life among the desert monks during his exiles produced the Life of Anthony, the biography that launched the monastic movement across the Christian world. Athanasius died in Alexandria in 373, having outlasted his persecutors. He is honored as a Doctor of the Church and as the man whose stubbornness saved the doctrine of the Trinity.