- Cyril, nephew of the former bishop of Alexandria, became bishop in 412 and one of the more powerful men in the church - the diocese of Alexandria was one of the largest in the world (it had more churches and priests than all of the Western empire) and one of the wealthiest
- accused of being guilty of a number of criminal actions (as was Athanasius), Cyril is most often accused of being motivated only by “politics” in bringing down Nestorius, the bishop of Constantinople
- in actuality, Cyril and Nestorius were part of the ongoing argument about how Jesus was both God and man - the “orthodox” teaching on Christ accepted by the church is the position that Cyril defended, i.e., that God and man are “personally united” so closely in Jesus that you can't really talk about God or man separately
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