Alexander of Alexandria

Around 318, or let us say between 318 and 323, Alexander, the elderly bishop, found support strong enough among his clergy and laity when he drove Arius out of his presbyterium, and also when he opposed the episcopal front built up in favor of Arius along the oriental border of the Mediterranean Sea. In the winter of 324–325 he succeeded in having the famous Eusebius of Caesarea himself excommunicated at a synod in Antioch among other high-ranking supporters of Arius. He continued to hold the same strong line in the imperial synod of Nicea in the spring of 325. After Nicea, Arius was exiled in Illyricum, a region to the west of the Balkan Peninsula. Alexander died in 328, not before the versatile Constantine had asked him in vain to reintegrate Arius among his clergy.

Charles Kannengiesser, “Athanasius of Alexandria vs. Arius: The Alexandrian Crisis,” in The Roots of Egyptian Christianity, ed. Birger A. Pearson and James E. Goehring, Studies in Antiquity and Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 204–5.