Christians had to submit to the civil authority of the Œcumenical Patriarch like the rest of the Orthodox. But the Church of Cyprus had been ever since the Council of Ephesus an autocephalous Church, obeying no Patriarch. It is so still, and it ranks immediately after the patriarchates as the fifth Church of the Orthodox Communion. It is true that here, as elsewhere, the Patriarch of Constantinople has constantly tried to usurp some sort of ecclesiastical jurisdiction; but the Cypriotes have always indignantly withstood him, taking their stand on the decree of Ephesus. Except the patriarchates no other branch of their communion has so good an argument for its independence as the decree of a general council, so on the whole Cyprus has always succeeded in its claim.[1] The head of this Church is the Archbishop of Cyprus, who resides at Nicosia; under him are three suffragan metropolitans,[2] and about one hundred and forty thousand Orthodox. In 1821 Archbishop Cyprian was strangled by the Turks for helping the Greek insurrection. It is unfortunate that when we come to the present state of these venerable Churches there is nothing to chronicle but the story of violent quarrels. One of the worst of all is now rending the Church of St. Barnabas. Lord Sophronios the Archbishop died in May, 1900. The See of Paphos was then vacant, the only Cypriote bishops left were Cyril of Kyrenia[3] and Cyril of Kition.[4] Each became a candidate for the Archbishopric, and their rivalry has torn the Church of Cyprus, indeed, the whole Orthodox world ever since. My Lord of Kition is a politician and strongly Philhellenic in his sympathies. His enemies say that he is a
- ↑ In the year 1600 Joachim of Antioch made a belated attempt to assert the old jurisdiction of his see over Cyprus. It was Meletios Pegas of Alexandria who pointed out to him that that had been done away with at Ephesus and that you cannot go behind a general council (Kyriakos, iii. p. 66).
- ↑ Of Kyrenia, Paphos and Kition.
- ↑ Cyril Basiliu.
- ↑ Cyril Papadopulos.
mistress of the island in 1489, and continued the same policy. The Turks conquered it in 1571; the English occupy it since 1878. Besides the Latins there have been Armenian and Maronite bishops in Cyprus. But the old line of the Cypriote Church has gone on throughout. For its troubles under the Crusaders and Venice, see Hergenröther-Kirsch, Kirchengesch. ii. pp. 725, seq., 780.
