St Irenaeus of Lyons

St. Irenaeus was a 2nd century Church Father who was passionate about nurturing Church community alive in the Spirit. In 2001 I published my MA thesis on his notion of Church and Community as an example of a rule of life praxis approach to orthopraxis (integrating theory and practice) that spoke to his life paradigm leading to a book I published called A Church Fully Alive. Irenaeus was very pastoral and ecumenical and combined the best of an Eastern and Western Spirituality. He emphasized unity and wholeness as a spirituality of growth in being human best fostered in Church Community. More contemporary Christian spiritual mentors such as the Canadian Mystics Catherine de Hueck Doherty and Linda Miroslava Sabbath have in many ways carried on this tradition. All embody the famous Irenain dictum, 'The Glory of God is a person fully alive, and the Glory of a person fully alive is the vision of God.'