Athanasius was the successor of Saint Alexander in the Alexandrian see, and as a deacon, he had accompanied him to the Council of Nicaea. Athanasius became the bishop of Alexandria in 328 and served for forty-five years, spending eighteen of those years in exile due to his orthodoxy.
He was the main defender of the faith of Nicaea during the strongest Arian crisis, that is, in the period immediately following Nicaea. His unshakable firmness in confessing a single substance in God (he said «hypostasis») and the essential equality between the Father and the Logos was not understood by many emperors and a large part of his fellow bishops, who considered this attitude to be stubbornness. Most of his important literary heritage was motivated by the Arian controversy. During his exiles to the West (Trier and Rome), he brought news of the nascent Egyptian monasticism. He died in Alexandria in 373.
