Hypatia
On curiosity, courage, and the work of keeping dialogue possible.
These past few months, it has felt like the world is unraveling. In Minnesota, my home state, violence has rattled our sense of safety once again. A school shooting left families in our community broken with children grieving the loss of two classmates. In June, State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, were shot and killed in their home, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were also wounded in a politically motivated attack. Recently, the death of Charlie Kirk bled into the headlines and was another dark reminder that our nation is simmering on the edge of something we don’t want to name but can no longer ignore.
We live in a season where the air feels humid with tension and anger, like a storm that never quite breaks. People try to relieve the tension by shouting louder, firing shots, by doubling down on their point. And at what cost? I’ve watched friendships unravel over political arguments that once would have been shrugged off. I’ve seen families draw invisible lines at dinner tables, choosing silence or estrangement rather than risk another explosion. I’ve seen whole communities fracture, neighbors eyeing one another with suspicion, churches splitting down the middle, workplaces becoming warzones. And it’s exhausting, because it feels less like conflict that will pass and more like a permanent fault line running through the heart of who we are.
I find myself looking backward. Not to escape, but to remind myself that chaos and division are not new. History has been through moments like this before, when societies were fractured by violence, fear, and deep disagreements. In those times, some people managed to stand out as voices of reason and courage, choosing dialogue when others chose hostility. Looking at their lives helps me see that resilience is possible even in the hardest seasons. One of those people, for me, is Hypatia of Alexandria.
Hypatia lived in Alexandria during the late 4th and early 5th centuries CE. The city of Alexandria was an intellectual, and quite literal, lighthouse on the shores of the Mediterranean. A city that had once housed the greatest library in the world and carried the reputation of being a center of intellectual pursuit and culture. It was one of the wealthiest cities in the Roman Empire, second only to Rome itself. Its harbor connected trade routes stretching from India to Spain. Grain from Egypt fed the empire, and Alexandria’s merchants became wealthy exporting papyrus, glass, and other textiles. Its lighthouse, the Pharos, was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, guiding traders, scholars, and travelers safely into her harbor.
On one hand, Alexandria was a place of learning, curiosity, and trade. On the other, it was a city of riots, power struggles, and sectarian violence. Religious identity wasn’t just about faith, it was about power. Pagans, Christians, and Jews clashed constantly. During Hypatia’s lifetime, the city was rocked by repeated uprisings, in 391 CE, Bishop Theophilus led Christians in the destruction of the Serapeum, a grand Pagan temple that also held libraries and religious relics, an event that marked the humiliation and suppression of Alexandria’s Pagan community. For the average Alexandrian, life was a constant balancing act between opportunity and instability. The harbor made it one of the wealthiest urban centers of the ancient world. But beneath that prosperity, ordinary people lived with deep uncertainty. Riots could erupt without warning, and tensions often boiled over into violence.
The balance of religious power had changed dramatically by Hypatia’s lifetime. Christianity had gained imperial support, and religious conflict was bound up with struggles over civic authority. In Alexandria, the average citizen, whether shopkeeper, sailor, or student, lived in the shadow of shifting allegiances and sudden outbreaks of violence.
When I read about Alexandria, I couldn’t help but think of Minneapolis after George Floyd’s death. For a moment, it felt like the whole world was watching my city. Helicopters circled overhead, tanks in the streets and the air was thick with smoke from burning buildings. Every street corner felt like a gathering point for grief and disbelief. Protesters poured into the streets demanding justice, reform, and change. People carried handmade signs, chanted the names, and marched until their voices cracked. Strangers handed out bottled water and first aid supplies, neighbors opened their doors to those fleeing tear gas. It was chaotic, but it was also alive with a kind of raw honesty I had never seen before.
And for a brief time, I thought something new might be born out of all that pain. It felt like a crack had opened in the foundation of the city, a chance for something different to emerge, a deeper conversation, a chance to actually listen to one another. And it wasn’t just Minneapolis. In New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Portland, Chicago, across the nation and even across the world, protests were organized. People poured into London, Paris, Berlin, and Sydney carrying George Floyd’s name as though our city’s grief had become the world’s. For a heartbeat, it felt like humanity itself was in the streets, demanding that justice be a living, breathing practice.
But just like Alexandria, the unity was fragile. What began as collective outrage and hope fractured under the weight of politics, fear, and exhaustion. Conversations that had started with openness hardened into factions. Families and friendships broke under the pressure of right or left, us vs. them. Social media, which at first amplified solidarity, became a place of venom and rage. Instead of building a new foundation, we retreated again. And just as in Hypatia’s Alexandria, moments of possibility gave way to deeper division, leaving ordinary people, those who had marched and wept, wondering if anything had truly changed.
Hypatia stood in the middle of Alexandria’s storm. She was a philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, roles dominated by men in her time. And yet she commanded respect from students and political leaders alike. Above all, she was a teacher, guiding young minds from all walks of life in philosophy and science, shaping a generation that would carry her ideas far beyond the walls of her school.
Her teaching crossed religious boundaries. A Pagan philosopher taught Christian students, including a future bishop. We cannot reconstruct every classroom conversation, but that relationship alone speaks to the possibility of learning across differences. She created a rare space where learning mattered more than tribal lines. And it wasn’t just her openness that made it remarkable, it was the fact that she, a woman, was at the center of it all. In an age when women were often excluded from formal education, Hypatia not only studied but became the teacher. She didn’t just sit in on lectures, she gave them. She didn’t just enter classrooms built by men, she created her own. She ran a school in Alexandria’s male dominated intellectual world and filled it with voices that weren’t supposed to be in conversation with one another. That kind of inclusivity was radical then, and honestly, it feels radical now.
Her presence was a quiet revolution. Every time a student walked through her doors, they were stepping into a classroom led by a woman, something unthinkable in much of the Roman world. And yet Hypatia’s reputation was so strong, her wisdom so respected, that her gender could not diminish her authority. Students came from across the Roman empire to study with her. Leaders sought her counsel. Her school became not only a haven for dialogue but a testament to the possibility of women shaping public life in a way that still feels wild centuries later.
We know this not only from history books but from the words of her own students. Synesius of Cyrene, who later became a Christian bishop, wrote to Hypatia with reverence and affection, calling her his teacher and guide. He sought her advice regularly. A Christian bishop writing letters to a Pagan woman philosopher, not to argue with her or correct her, but to ask for her wisdom and guidance. That’s how powerful her influence was.
Synesius brought a philosophical education into his later Christian life. That does not mean Hypatia created or established the doctrine of the Trinity; Christian debates about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit long predated her teaching. What moves me is the relationship we can actually see: a Christian bishop continuing to honor the Pagan woman who had taught him. Intellectual influence can cross religious boundaries without becoming a simple story of one tradition inventing another.
Her classroom was more than a place of study, it was a sanctuary where identities didn’t cancel out humanity, where knowledge could stretch across religious dogma, and where even future bishops recognized the authority of a woman who dared to lead. She proved that knowledge doesn’t just belong to one group, one gender, or one tradition, it belongs to all of us. And by holding open that space, she challenged the boundaries of her society in ways that still challenge ours today.
Her presence wasn’t just tolerated, it was welcomed among Alexandria’s elite. She advised Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who leaned on her counsel during his bitter conflict with Cyril, the Christian bishop. She became a bridge between political factions without ever being an official diplomat. Her authority came not from holding office, but from embodying wisdom, clarity, and fairness.
When I think about that, I wonder what it would it look like if we built more “schools” like hers today? Not literal classrooms, but spaces, maybe even within our own relationships, where dialogue is possible, where disagreement isn’t the end of connection, where people can be curious instead of defensive.
It sounds naïve, but Hypatia shows it’s possible. She built it and people came. In the middle of a city tearing itself apart, her classroom was a refuge.
Sadly, her story doesn’t end well. In 415 CE, Hypatia was murdered by a Christian mob, amid the political conflict surrounding Orestes and Cyril. Hypatia wasn’t just cut down, she was literally torn apart. Historian Maria Dzielska describes how she was stripped, beaten with tiles, and dismembered before her remains were burned outside the city. It was meant not only to kill her but to erase her, to make her an example. The sheer savagery of the act echoes across centuries, and it’s hard not to feel the weight of it, a woman of knowledge, a bridge builder, destroyed in the most dehumanizing way possible by those who feared her voice.
What makes this even more tragic is that Hypatia wasn’t simply a scholar tucked away in her study, her home itself had become a gathering place, where people from all walks of life met to discuss philosophy, science, and politics. Students and civic leaders sought her out, drawn not only by her intellect but by her ability to host dialogue across divides. These meetings gave her a kind of informal power, a voice in shaping Alexandria’s intellectual and political climate without ever holding office. To her enemies, that influence looked dangerous. Her death turned that openness into a warning.
Her death has left a difficult historical legacy. Socrates Scholasticus, a Christian historian writing not long after the events, described a mob led by a reader named Peter and said the murder brought disgrace upon Cyril and the Alexandrian church. His account does not establish that Cyril ordered it. The extent of Cyril’s responsibility remains debated. Was Hypatia’s death the act of extremists, or inseparable from the power struggles surrounding church leadership? The uncertainty does not diminish the brutality. It raises questions about the line between faith and fanaticism, authority and abuse.
Her death wasn’t just about silencing a woman, it was about silencing what she represented. Knowledge. Independence. Dialogue. The refusal to bow to fear. Violence is always aimed at silencing someone, whether it’s a voice, a movement, or a community. It leaves a void. And once the bridge-builders are gone, all that’s left is the raging waters below.
Violence today is like raging waters, surging past reason and drowning everything in its path. One month, it’s the shooting of a MN politician trying to keep both sides of the aisle happy. Another month, the target is a conservative leader speaking on a university stage. Sometimes it’s a synagogue, sometimes it’s a Black church, sometimes it’s a mosque, sometimes it’s a school filled with children praying who had no skin in the fight but are forced to carry the scars of it anyway. Violence doesn’t care about ideology. It doesn’t ask what party you voted for or which faith you belong to. And like raging water, it only knows how to consume and destroy anything trying to stop it.
Each act of political violence gets folded into the narrative of division. The right points to the left. The left points to the right. Both use the deaths as evidence of their own oppression, hardening the walls that already keep us apart. Instead of mourning together, we retreat further into our camps. Instead of asking how to end the cycle, we argue about who “started it.” It’s Alexandria all over again, sectarian rage feeding on itself until no one remembers the original wound, only the latest retaliation.
And the truth is, when a leader, teacher, activist, or thinker is murdered, whether by a mob in antiquity or by a lone gunman in 2025, what we lose is irreplaceable. We don’t just lose the person, we lose their ability to create dialogue, to invite us into conversations we might not have had otherwise. We lose the bridge they were building. And without those bridges, we are left shouting across the raging rapids.
I think about the students who once walked into Hypatia’s school, seeking wisdom after her death. What did they feel when she was killed? Shock? Rage? Fear? Did they stop talking to each other? Did they retreat into silence? Did the classroom dissolve into another line of division? Because that’s what violence does, it doesn’t just take a life, it steals the potential of connection.
Consider the recent killing of Charlie Kirk. He was speaking at an event on a university campus, Utah Valley University, a place designed for discourse, debate, for ideas to meet friction. That should have been sacred ground for testing beliefs, for pushing back, for asking hard questions. Instead, in the midst of a “Prove Me Wrong” debate, with students gathered, cameras up, voices raised in argument and inquiry, a shot was fired. Charlie Kirk was fatally wounded while speaking, on a stage meant for conversation, for exchange. His death left a wife without her husband and two children without their father.
The irony is bitter, the very place that should welcome and protect dissent, that should champion free speech and rigorous debate, became a site of violence. And no matter what side of the political divide you stand on, no family should have to endure a tragedy like this one. It wasn’t just a man whose life was stolen, it was a family whose lives are forever changed.
Universities, like Hypatia’s school, are supposed to be the last bastions of openness, places where someone can stand and speak, and others can challenge and learn, perhaps even change their opinion. Instead of resorting to violence, what if we built institutions that truly protected that exchange, so that speech itself wasn’t feared or silenced simply because it might be dangerous? Spaces where all ideas could be tested, not just listening to the sounds, in an echo chamber.
Hypatia held her school as a place where beliefs met critical thinking, where an advocate could stand by their ideas and a skeptic could push back. The violence against Kirk and others show how far we are from that ideal, but it also underscores how precious it is, the courage it takes to show up, to speak and to let oneself be challenged.
Sometimes, reading about Hypatia’s Alexandria feels like looking in a mirror when I think about the current state of affairs in the United States. Religious versus secular tensions? Absolutely. In Hypatia’s Alexandria, Christians and Pagans clashed bitterly over whose worldview would dominate, just as today we see battles over the role of faith in public life, from debates on abortion rights to the teaching of evolution in schools.
Leaders more invested in power than in people? Affirmative. Bishop Cyril and Prefect Orestes fought not only over ideology but also over control of the city, much like modern politicians who weaponize cultural divides to secure their own authority rather than seeking genuine solutions to issues.
Ordinary citizens afraid to speak, afraid to listen, caught in the middle? Yep. That was Alexandria’s shopkeepers and scholars who risked harassment if they aligned too publicly with one side. Today, it’s neighbors who dodge political conversations at family dinners or employees who self-censor at work to avoid conflict.
And violence used as both punishment and message? Check. Hypatia’s brutal murder was meant to silence her and intimidate others, just as modern assassinations, mass shootings, and politically motivated attacks serve not only to end lives but to warn communities about the cost of dissent.
We live in a time of polarization, where identity politics fuel discord, where truth feels negotiable, where leaders pit us against one another for their own gain. Alexandria may feel far away, but its struggles live in us to this day.
Hypatia didn’t set out to lead a political revolution. She wasn’t wielding an army or running for office. Her courage was quieter, steadier. It was in the way she opened her classroom to everyone. The way she taught reason over rage. The way she used her influence with political leaders not to divide but to persuade toward dialogue.
That kind of courage feels attainable. It reminds me that not all resistance is loud. Sometimes it’s choosing to stay open when fear says close up. Sometimes it’s choosing to listen when anger says shout louder. Sometimes it’s choosing to hold steady when chaos says to pack it up.
When I look at the violence in Minnesota, and the United States, the assassinations and the school shootings. I feel small, powerless. And then I remember Hypatia, holding her ground in Alexandria, refusing to abandon clarity and reason. Maybe small acts, listening, reaching across the political divide, aren’t small at all. Maybe they’re the seeds of community and compassion.
Hypatia’s death was brutal, but her life was an example. She reminds me that wisdom doesn’t always come from the people with the loudest voices or the most power. Sometimes it comes from the ones who dare to stand steady in the storm, who hold open the possibility of dialogue when everyone else wants to shut it down.
And maybe that’s what we need now. Not more noise. Not more fire, but more people who are willing to do the hard work, building bridges in the middle of an earthquake. Because maybe survival isn’t about who shouts the loudest, punch the hardest or shoot the farthest. Maybe it’s about the ordinary people who refuse to stop building bridges with one another.