CYPRUS, CHURCH OF

This article appears in Volume V07, Page 702 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: CRE-DAH

CYPRUS, CHURCH OF . The Church of Cyprus is in communion and in doctrinal agreement with the other Orthodox Churches of the

East

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

(see ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH), but is independent and subject to no patriarch. This position it has always claimed (see, however, W.

Bright

BRIGHT, JOHN (1811-188g)
BRIGHT, SIR CHARLES TILSTON

, Notes on the Canons, on Ephesus 8). At any rate, its independence " by ancient custom " was recognized, as against the claims of the patriarch of Antioch, by the council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, by an edict of the emperor Zeno (to whom the church had sent a cogent argument on its own behalf, the alleged

body

BODY

of its reputed founder St Barnabas, then just discovered at Salamis), and by the Trullan Council in 692. Attempts have been made subse. quently by the patriarchs of Antioch to claim authority over it, the last as recently as 1600; but they came to nothing. And excepting for the period during which Cyprus was in the hands of the Lusignans and the Venetian Republic (1193-1571), the Church has never lost its independence. It receives the holy ointment (,u pov) from without, till 186o from Antioch and subsequently from

Constantinople

CONSTANTINOPLE
CONSTANTINOPLE, COUNCILS OF

, but this is a matter of courtesy and not of right. Of old there were some twenty

sees

SEES

in the

island

ISLAND (O.E. ieg =isle, +land')

. The bishop of the

capital

CAPITAL (i.e. capital stock or fund)
CAPITAL (Lat. caput, head)

, Salamis or Constantia, was constituted metropolitan by Zeno, with the title " archbishop
of all Cyprus," enlarged subsequently into " archbishop of CYRANO DE BERGERAC, SAVINIEN (162o-1655), French Justiniana Nova and of all Cyprus," after an enforced expatria-
tion to Justinianopolis in 688. Zeno also gave him the unique privileges of wearing and signing his name in the imperial purple, &c., which are still preserved. A Latin hierarchy was set up in 1196 (an archbishop at Nicosia with suffragans at

Limasol

LIMASOL

, Paphos and Famagusta), and the Greek bishops were made to minister to their flocks in subjection to it. The

sees

SEES

were forcibly reduced to four, the archbishopric was ostensibly abolished, and the bishops were compelled to do homage and swear fealty to the Latin Church. This bondage ceased at the conquest of the

island

ISLAND (O.E. ieg =isle, +land')

by the Turks : the Latin hierarchy disappeared (the cathedral at Nicosia is now used as a mosque), and the native church emerged into comparative freedom. In 1821, it is true, all the bishops and many of their flock were put to death by way of discouraging sympathies with the Greeks; but successors were soon consecrated, by bishops sent from Antioch at the request of. the patriarch of

Constantinople

CONSTANTINOPLE
CONSTANTINOPLE, COUNCILS OF

, and on the whole the Church has prospered. The bishops-elect required the berat of the sultan; but having received this, they enjoyed no little civil importance. Since 1878 the berat has not been given, and the bishops are less influential. The suppressed sees have never been restored, but the four which survive (now known as Nicosia, Paphos, Kition and Kyrenia) are of metropolitan rank, so that the archbishop, whose headquarters, first at Salamis, then at Famagusta, are now at Nicosia, is a primate amongst metropolitans. There are several monasteries dating., from the 11th century and onwards; also an archiepiscopal school at Nicosia, founded in 1812 and raised to the status of a " gymnasion " in 1893; and a high school for girls.
rnr Ki irpov (Athens, 1875) ; K. Kouriokurineos (Archbishop of Cyprus), 'Ioropta XpovoXo'yucfi 1171 vhaov Kunrpov (Venice, 1788); de Mas Latrie, Histoire de

Pile

PILE

de Chypre sous les princes de la maison de Lusignan (Paris, 1852 f.); H. T. F. Duckworth, The Church of Cyprus (London, 1900) ; J. Hackett, History of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus (1901). (W. E. Co.)

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