The Saints: St. Hilary of Poitiers

315 - 367 / Feast - Jan. 13

Hilary, a French bishop, was a strong defender of the divinity of Christ and of the Trinity. “Anyone who fails to see Christ Jesus as at once truly God and truly man is blind to his own life,” he wrote. He was banished under Emperor Constantius II for opposing the Arians, those claiming that Jesus was not of the same substance as God. Hilary pushed for the acceptance of the Nicene Creed to ensure unity in Christian belief. He was named a Doctor of the Church by Pius IX in 1851.