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I am continuing this series introducing to you the Doctors of the Church. Today I want to talk about Saint Ambrose (339-397). In 374 Auxentius, the bishop of Milan, had died. This left the local church bitterly divided between quarreling parties of Orthodox and Arian Christians. Each faction wanted their candidate to be chosen as the next bishop of Milan. Ambrose who was serving as the provincial governor went to the basilica to exhort those gathered there to come to a peaceful solution.

I am continuing the series on the Doctors of the Church. This week I am writing about Saint Gregory Nazianzus (ca. 330-ca.390), who was one of three children. His father was a bishop of the same name. Later it would become the practice that bishops in the Eastern Church would be chosen from men who were widowers or monks. I don’t know if Gregory Nazianzus the Elder was a widower at the time he became a bishop. At any rate Gregory Nazianzus the Younger (about whom I am writing today) studied in Caesaria in Cappadocia (modern day Kayseri, Turkey), Alexandria, and finally in Athens.

I want to devote the rest of this column to the next Doctor of the Church in chronological order, Saint Basil the Great (329-379). On Thursday, September 8, 2022, Queen Elizabeth II died at Balmoral Castle in Scotland. Shortly after the Queen’s death, Pope Francis sent a telegram to King Charles III to express his condolences for the death of Queen Elizabeth.

I am continuing this series on Doctors of the Church. Today I want to talk about Saint Cyril of Jerusalem. He was born at or near Jerusalem either in 313 or 315. He received an excellent literary education which helped him in his study of the Scriptures. He was ordained a priest by Bishop Maximus and ordained bishop of Jerusalem in 348. In the thirty-eight years he served as a bishop, he was deposed and exiled three times.

I am continuing my series on the Doctors of the Church. This week I am writing about Saint Hilary of Poitiers (312-67). Hilary was born into a distinguished pagan family in the Roman province of Gaul. After his conversion and baptism, he was elected Bishop of Poitiers around the year 350. He organized the bishops in Gaul to resist those who were sympathetic to the teachings of Arius. These individuals would have held that the Son of God is not co-eternal and consubstantial (homoouios) with the Father. Others, called Semi-Arians, would have admitted that the Son was “like” (homoios) the Father, but refused to speak of consubstantiality. Because he organized this resistance by the Bishops in Gaul, Hilary was exiled to the East by the emperor Constantius in 356.