medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Alexander I of Alexandria (d. 326 or 328). Alexander was elected bishop of Alexandria in Egypt in 313, succeeding St. Achillas. In the chronotaxis of the Coptic Orthodox Church he was the nineteenth pope of the See of Mark; in that of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa he was its nineteenth pope and patriarch. Alexander had to deal with such matters as the Meletian schism, left over from the days of his predecessor but one, St. Peter the Martyr, and another schism in which a point of differentiation was the correct timing of Easter. That said, his tenure in office is memorable especially for his dealing with the priest Arius. Alexander convened a synod in Alexandria in 320 that condemned as heretical Arius' Christological teaching and followed this up both by doctrinal letters to individual bishops and by an encyclical cataloging what from his perspective were Arius' errors. Alexander had a leading role in the condemnation of Arius at the First Council of Nicaea (the First Ecumenical Council) in 325. He was succeeded as bishop of Alexandria in Egypt by his disciple St. Athanasius of Alexandria. English-language translations of some of his writings are available here:
http://www.fourthcentury.com/index.php/alexander-chart
Today is Alexander's feast day in the ninth-century martyrologies of St. Ado of Vienne and Usuard of Saint-Germain. It has also been his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology from its later sixteenth-century beginnings onward. The Coptic Orthodox Church celebrates his departure on 22. Parmouti / Barmudah (April 2 or [in leap years] April 1, Gregorian); that church also venerates pope Alexander II (d. 729) as a saint, thus rendering advisable the use of the ordinal number for both popes saint Alexander of Alexandria.
Some medieval images of St. Alexander I of Alexandria:
a) Alexander I of Alexandria as depicted in a somewhat degraded eleventh-century fresco in the monastery church of the Virgin Eleousa at Veljusa (Strumica municipality) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
http://tinyurl.com/6u3jhvo
b) Alexander I of Alexandria (at center in this view; pope St. Sylvester at left) as depicted, in a detail view of the image of the First Ecumenical Council in the earlier fourteenth-century (betw. 1335 and 1350) frescoes in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Deèani monastery near Peæ in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/y96krb3
The image as a whole:
http://tinyurl.com/p24hhj2
c) Alexander I of Alexandria opposing Arius (the latter dressed in blue) at the First Ecumenical Council as depicted in a later fifteenth-century copy (1463) of Vincent of Beauvais' _Speculum historiale_ in its French-language version by Jean de Vignay (Paris, BnF, ms. Français 51, fol. 130r):
http://tinyurl.com/yzb3xjp
Best,
John Dillon
(matter from an earlier post revised)
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