| Cyril of Jerusalem (March 18th) as Bishop of that city from 349-386, is the one who instituted the liturgical observances of Lent and Holy Week that have come down to the Church today. He was born in Jerusalem ca. 315 and received a fine education. After he was ordained a priest in 345, he was given the task of instructing those who were preparing for baptism (at that time, such a process could last up to three years!). In this work Cyril is credited as the founder of formalized instruction in the Christian faith. His brilliant lectures, written between 348-350, are the earliest instructional materials surviving today and they are still used in a revised form.
He became Bishop of Jerusalem in 349 and had a stormy episcopate. Being entangled in both ecclesiastical and political disputes, he was exiled and restored no less than three times; sixteen of his thirty-seven years as a bishop were spent in exile. Over those years, Cyril was charged with insubordination (he upset the bishop who had consecrated him), selling church goods for relief of the poor (selling something that the Emperor had given is a no-no), and in a technical doctrinal dispute.
Other than packing and unpacking, Cyril took great interest in how to provide for the countless pilgrims who visited Jerusalem for Holy Week and Easter devotions. He began the services marking Palm Sunday and Holy Week as practical ways to organize worship for so many pilgrims. They returned to their homes with the practices they encountered in Jerusalem, thus influencing the development of Holy Week liturgies throughout the entire Church (Cyril’s thought had great impact on the 1979 Book of Common Prayer). In 381, he attended the Council of Constantinople that codified the definitive version of the Nicene Creed. Cyril died in Jerusalem on March 18, 386. |
