September 14, 2023 - Tout 3, 1740

Council of Bishops took place in Alexandria

On this day of the year 243 A.D., a holy synod convened in the city of Alexandria in the second year of the Papacy of St. Dionysius, the fourteenth Pope of Alexandria. This council was made because of certain people in the Arabian countries who believed that the soul dies with the body, and that on the day of the resurrection, it shall be raised up with it. They composed articles on this belief and sent them to certain people in Alexandria. When this reached the ears of Abba Dionysius, he was exceedingly sorry, and he tried to restrain the people from this evil, but they would not hearken unto him. Therefore, the council assembled, confronted them, and made manifest their perversion. As they neither repented nor turned away from their false belief, the holy synod and the Pope excommunicated them and wrote an article for them wherein he said, The love of God for us is exceedingly great, and the soul neither dies nor perishes, but abideth as the angels and the devils, for it is spiritual, immutable, and incorruptable. When the soul goeth on the day of the resurrection, when the trumpet soundeth, the dead bodies shall rise by the command of God. The souls go each into the body to which it belongeth, and according to its work, it will either rejoice or suffer punishment forever.