Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

Wherever we go there is intrigue.

Alexandria was a major metropolitan city on the Mediterranean Sea and a center for learning. For centuries the greatest philosophers, be they Pagan, Jewish, Christian, or other had joined in discussion and debate furthering each other’s work in a generally amenable series of relationships. One such philosopher was Hypatia, a brilliant polymath who taught any who desired to learn from her. She was a Platonist, a pagan, yet had many Christian students… some of whom went on to be members of the clergy and bishops. By no means the first woman scholar of the city, she was greatly respected by the hierarchy of the church and the secular governors.

Then, far away from this section of the city, turf wars had broken out between various factions along religious lines. Gangs of Pagan, Jewish, and Christian members were getting into fights, marring each other’s houses of worship, and trying to make the situation untenable for each other. Attempts from the various authorities to inhibit the violence and bring these violent factions to heel were consistently unsuccessful. Partisanship ruled their minds, and nothing could overcome it. One day, amidst an escalating series of incidents and in fear that their Archbishop Cyril was losing favor with the governor and Hypatia was to blame… a lector, one of the lay persons who reads the lessons at worship, led an angry mod to find Hypatia and murdered her.

Cyril, and Christian leaders from all factions, immediately denounced the murder of a colleague, teacher, and longstanding friend. Near irreparable damage had been done, however, to the communities involved. Platonist and academics across the Mediterranean used this as a reason to denounce Christianity as antagonistic to learning and reason. Christians antagonistic to pagan philosophy used this as a rallying call to further demean worldly education. The work of educators, academics, and philosophers across faiths continued but something altogether different had entered into the mix.

This antagonism between faith and science continues. We see it in certain Christians rejecting science and in scientifically minded Christians rejecting the miraculous. We see it in calls against evolution and in calls against medievalism. On this feast of Cyril of Alexandria we should pray for what he desired: that learned women like Hypatia, a philosopher skeptical of all Christianity suggested, would be free to educate another generation of clergy and laity so that we might be able to more fully understand each other and not divide into meaningless factionalism.

Pax,

—Ben