Saint Serapion

Catholic Saint

Saint Serapion the Scholastic-Bishop,

scholar and head of the famed Catechetical School of Alexandria, Egypt;

Greek Father of the Church

Feast Day : March 21

Also known as: Serapion of Arsinoc

Serapion was a monk in the Egyptian desert and a companion to St. Anthony, who left in his will the gift of two sheepskin cloaks, one for Serapion and the other for the patriarch St. Athanasius of Alexandria. Serapion was a close friend of Athanasius, and gave support to him against the heretic Arians in Egypt. His appointment as bishop of Thmuis, on the Nile Delta in Lower Egypt, enabled him to increase his efforts against the heretics. These efforts, however, led to his exile for a time by the ardent Arian emperor Constantius II. A brilliant scholar and theologian, he was also the author of a series of writings on the doctrine of the divinity of the Holy Spirit (addressed to the emperor), the Euchologium (a sacramentary) and a treatise against Manichaeanism.