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St.

St.

?–268 CE · Alexandria

Dionysius 'the Great' (born c. 190, died 22 March 264) was a pupil of Origen, head of the Alexandrian catechetical school from c. 232, and Bishop of Alexandria from 28 December 248. He guided his community through the Decian and Valerian persecutions and the Plague of Cyprian. During the Decian persecution he fled into hiding and was briefly seized near Taposiris before escaping to an unnamed location in the Libyan Desert. Under Valerian he suffered a formal two-stage exile: first to Kephro, a village near the desert in the region south-west of Alexandria, and then — still within the Valerian period — to Colluthion in the Mareotic district closer to the city. His surviving letters, preserved extensively by Eusebius, make him one of the most richly documented bishops of the third century.

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Stop 1 of 3190–264Birthplace, Bishop, Death

AlexandriaEgypt

What they did here

Born c. 190 and educated here, Dionysius headed the catechetical school from c. 232 before becoming bishop on 28 December 248 and dying 22 March 264; Alexandria was his lifelong base interrupted only by flight during the Decian persecution and formal exile under Valerian.

Alexandria in this era

Under Roman imperial rule, Alexandria hosted the Catechetical School (Didascaleion), where Clement and then Origen turned the city into early Christianity's foremost theological workshop, pioneering allegorical Scripture interpretation and systematic theology in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries.

About Alexandria

Alexandria (al-Iskandariyya) is the great Mediterranean port-city of northern Egypt, founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE and a leading centre of learning in antiquity. After the Muslim conquest of Egypt (642) it remained a major commercial and scholarly hub; the Shadhili Sufi Ibn Ata Allah al-Iskandari (d. 1309) took his nisba from the city, and the modernist reformer Muhammad Abduh (d. 1905) was active in Egypt's intellectual life there and in Cairo.

In Alexandria at the same time

Athenagoras, Clement of Alexandria, Julius Africanus, Origen, Peter of Alexandria, Alexander of Alexandria

Across the traditions, in Alexandria at the same time

See other sages who lived in Alexandria→

In the same place & time

Sages whose lives overlapped with St.’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.

Across the traditions

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with St.’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

Works(2)