St. Ephrem

Ephrem the Syrian, also known as St. Ephraem, was a Syriac Christian deacon and a prolific Syriac-language hymnographer and theologian of the 4th century. He is especially beloved in the Syriac Orthodox Church, and counted as a Venerable Father (i.e., a sainted Monk) in Eastern Orthodoxy. His feast day is celebrated on June 9 in the Roman Catholic Church and on January 28 in the Eastern Orthodox and Catholic Churches. He was declared a Doctor of the Church in the Catholic Church in 1920. Ephrem wrote a wide variety of hymns, poems, and sermons in verse, as well as prose biblical exegesis. These were works of practical theology for the edification of the church in troubled times. So popular were his works, that for centuries after his death, Christian authors wrote hundreds of pseudepigraphal works in his name. He has been called the most significant of all of the fathers of the Syriac-speaking church tradition. His feast is  kept on June 9.