Post #6062

Very studious of Sacred Scripture and theology, although self-taught, he directed the catechetical school first in Nisibis, then in Edessa (Syria) after Nisibis was ceded by the Roman Empire to the Persians, following the defeats suffered by Julian the Apostate. In fact, after the death of bishop James, Nisibis taken by the Persians, he went to Edessa; there he first stopped for a while among the monks of the mountain, then, to avoid the numerous visits he received there, he embraced the hermit's life. Ordained deacon of the church of Edessa, and refused the priesthood out of humility, he became famous in every kind of virtue, and applied himself to acquiring piety and religion by the true practice of wisdom. Having placed all his hopes in God, he had contempt for all worldly things, continually aspiring to the divine and eternal. Led by the Holy Spirit, he went to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he met with the spokesman of the Church, Basil, and they both bonded in holy friendship. To combat the innumerable errors which then troubled the Church, and to better illustrate the mysteries of our Lord Jesus Christ, he gave birth to many works written in the Syriac language, and almost all translated into the Greek language; and, according to St. Jerome, “Ephraim, composed many works in the Syriac language, and became so distinguished that his writings are repeated publicly in some churches, after the reading of the Scriptures.” (De viris illustribus, chapter CXV). All these publications, full of such luminous doctrine, deserved this great saint, who, still alive, was honoured as a Doctor of the Church. He also composed poetic songs in praise of the Virgin Mary and the Saints: hence the Zither of the Holy Spirit was deservedly called by the Syrians. He shone above all for his extraordinary and tender devotion to the Immaculate Virgin. Loaded with merit, he fell asleep in the Lord in Edessa (today in the province of Sanliurfa, Turkey), in Mesopotamia, on the 9th of June 373, under the emperor Valens. Praised by many holy Fathers, from Gregory of NIssa to Jerome, Pope Benedict XV praised the figure and, at the request of many Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church, Patriarchs, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots and religious families, declared him a Doctor of the universal Church with the encyclical Principi Apostolorum Petro of the 5th of October 1920.