Macarius

d.333. Bishop of Jerusalem from c.313. He was probably the Macarius whom the heretical Arius labeled an “uneducated heretic” in his letter to Eusebius of Nicomedia, since we have the tradition from several sources that Macarius attended the Council of Nicea (325) and may have actively debated the Arians and helped draft the Creed. Further, his differences with his metropolitan, Eusebius of Caesarea,* the church historian, stemmed from the latter's soft stand against Arianism,* though a more basic cause was Macarius's attitude that Jerusalem, birthplace of Christianity, ought not to be subordinate to Caesarea, provincial capital. Indeed Jerusalem later became a patriarchate. Constantine's letter assigning construction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to Macarius is extant in Eusebius. The church complex, enormous with porticoed courtyard and sumptuous in gold coffered ceilings and marble from all parts of the empire, took nearly ten years to build. Macarius may also have helped identify the true cross discovered by St. Helena.