Saint’s Corner: St. Isidore
(Bishop and Doctor of the Church)
On April 4th we celebrate the memorial of Saint Isidore who came from a very holy family. Two of his brothers became bishops and Saints while one of his sisters was an abbess and a Saint. However, not much is known about Saint Isidore’s childhood.
We do know that he received a very good education and became the Bishop of Seville for 37 years after his brother’s death.
Saint Isidore worked to combat Arianism which was a heresy in the early Church which denied the divinity of Christ. He also helped
Spanish culture to flourish in the middle ages, a time when most of Europe was being attacked by barbarians. He was known as the greatest teacher in all of Spain and presided over two local Church councils.
Among his other achievements, Saint Isidore put together an encyclopedia containing much of the knowledge of his age which was a favorite textbook for study into the sixteenth century. Saint Isidore died at about the age of 80 in 636 A.D. and was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1722.