Cyril of Jerusalem
"If you should be in foreign
cities, do not simply ask where is the church...but where is the Catholic Church, for this is the
proper name of this holy Mother of all." Cyril of Jerusalem preached these words to his congregation in
about 347 CE. Several catechetical texts composed by Cyril survive, including
lectures on the mass and the sacraments of baptism, communion, and confirmation. Cyril preached that the sacraments, especially the Body and Blood of Christ,
were a crucial sign of Christ's ongoing work in the church and in the
world. He engaged in fiery polemics with Christian communities who preached that Christ
was not born in the flesh, pointing to the Eucharist as the foundation of
Catholic sacramentology in which God is profoundly invested in material
reality. God redeemed the visible and invisible world through a human, Jesus
Christ, an ongoing work whose fullness continued in the Catholic Church. He attended the Council of Constantinople in 381 CE, which ratified the Nicene creed, and was made a Doctor of the Church in 1883.
Sources: See "St. Cyril." http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04595b.htm
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