Saint cyprian feast day
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Cyprian
Thascious Caecilius Cyprianus was born in or near Carthage (modern Tunisia) in a wealthy aristocratic family. He was given a good education and became a very successful and wealthy barrister. A career in the higher echelons of the civil service appeared to be opened to him. It seemed that Cyprian was quite familiar with all constitutional laws and political ideas and when he became a Christian, he transferred this immense experience quite naturally to the sphere of his ecclesiastical activity in favour of the church.
How he was converted we do not know for certain. It is, however, generally believed that a presbyter named Caecilianus (or Caecilian) won Cyprian for the church. It is also believed that Cyprian adopted the name Caecilius or Caecilianus because of his personal and spiritual relationship with this presbyter. He did not become a Christian until 246 A.D. He was baptized into the church the same year. After his conversion Cyprian disposed of most of his wealth and property and gave it to the poor. In the year 248 A.D., shortly after the death of the incumbent,
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Cyprian
Bishop of Carthage and Christian writer (c. 210–258)
This article is about the bishop of Carthage. For other Cyprians, see Cyprian (disambiguation).
Cyprian (; Latin: Thascius Caecilius Cyprianus; c. 210 to 14 September 258 AD[1]) was a bishop of Carthage and an early Christian writer of Berber descent, many of whose Latin works are extant. He is recognized as a saint in the Western and Eastern churches.
He was born around the beginning of the 3rd century in North Africa, perhaps at Carthage,[5] where he received a classical education. Soon after converting to Christianity, he became a bishop in 249. A controversial figure during his lifetime, his strong pastoral skills, firm conduct during the Novatianist controversy and outbreak of the Plague of Cyprian (named for his description of it), and eventual martyrdom at Carthage established his reputation and proved his sanctity in the eyes of the Church.
His skilful Latin rhetoric led to his being considered the pre-eminent Latin writer of Western Christianity until Jerome and Augustine. •
Cyprian was born around 200 AD in North Africa, of pagan parents. He was a prominent trial lawyer and teacher of rhetoric. Around 246 he became a Christian, and in 248 was chosen Bishop of Carthage. A year later the persecution under the Emperor Decius began, and Cyprian went into hiding. He was severely censured for this (unjustly on my view -- see Mt 2:13; 10:23; 24:16). After the persecution had died down, it remained to consider how to deal with the lapsed, meaning with those Christians who had denied the faith under duress. Cyprian held that they ought to be received back into full communion after suitable intervals of probation and penance, adjusted to the gravity of the denial. In this he took a middle course between Novatus, who received apostates with no probation at all, and Novatian, who would not receive them back at all, and who broke communion with the rest of the Church over this issue, forming a dissident group particularly strong in Rome and Antioch. (Novatus, somewhat surprisingly, ended up joining the party of Novatian.) Cyprian, who held the same position
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