ON ST. CYRUS, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE.
Circa the year of Christ 714.
CommentaryCyrus, Bishop of Constantinople (St.)
From various sources.
[1] Cyrus, an orthodox Bishop of the See of Constantinople and an exile on account of religion, is celebrated today with public veneration by the Greeks; in whose Menaea the following is read concerning him on January 8: On the same day, the commemoration of our Holy Father Cyrus, St. Cyrus, Bishop of Constantinople. Archbishop of Constantinople. His synaxis (or commemoration) is celebrated in the venerable monastery of the Chora (where this was situated we shall say below in section 9) and in the great church, on Sunday.
Singing of your flesh, O my Christ, Cyrus, freed from the flesh, stands before your throne.
[2] He had previously been a monk on a certain island near Amastris, or even superior of monks. At that time Justinian II, son of the most pious Emperor Constantine Pogonatus, because he was ruining the commonwealth through boyish frivolity and impotence, was — when Leontius was raised to the empire by popular sedition — by his order mutilated in the nose and banished to Cherson, a city of the Tauric Chersonese, in the year of Christ 695. From there he fled to the Chagan, King of the Avars, and married his sister or at least his daughter, Theodora, and with his permission fixed his domicile in the city of Phanagoria, situated on the Cimmerian Bosporus. But when Tiberius Absimarus (who in 698 had seized the empire after cutting off the nose of Leontius and thrusting him into a monastery) solicited the Chagan to remove Justinian from the scene, and the barbarian was not reluctant — He predicts the recovery of the empire for Justinian Rhinotmetus. he, warned by his wife, withdrew himself from the danger in time and, having gone to Terbellis, or Trebellius, King of the Bulgarians, recovered the empire with his aid in the year 705. That this would come to pass, Cyrus had predicted to him, and had nourished the exile in Pontus.
[3] The Emperor, mindful of this kindness, while raging bloodily against his other adversaries, banished Callinicus the Patriarch — a heretical man — He becomes Bishop of Constantinople. after first putting out his eyes, to Rome, so that he who had previously raised his head arrogantly against the Roman Pontiff, as Baronius notes in volume 8, at the year 703, section 2 (which will be more fully set forth in the Life of Pope St. Sergius on September 9), should receive the dole of livelihood, humbled, from the same. In his place, as St. Nicephorus of Constantinople writes, he substituted Cyrus, who had lived as a recluse at Amastris and had predicted the recovery of the empire when he was present there. Joannes Zonaras, volume 3 of the Annals: "He designated as Patriarch a certain enclosed monk named Cyrus, who had predicted to him the recovery of the kingdom." George Cedrenus: "At Constantinople he appointed as Patriarch Cyrus, who had been enclosed on the island of Amastris, as one who had predicted the recovery of the empire." But more ancient than all of these is Bede, in his book On the Six Ages of the World, and from him Marianus Scotus: "And he gave the episcopate to Cyrus, who was an Abbot in Pontus and had nourished him in exile." Paul the Deacon, History of the Romans, book 18: "And he appointed Cyrus the Abbot, who had nourished him as an exile in Pontus, as Bishop in the place of Callinicus." These are expressed thus in the edition of Gruterus, book 20, Historia Miscella, chapter 9: "And in his stead he advanced as successor Cyrus, who had been enclosed on the island of Amastris, as one who had foretold to him the restoration of the former empire."
[4] It appears, therefore, that he had been the superior of monks on some island near Amastris. Amastris is a city of the Mariandeni in Pontus on the Euxine Sea, beyond the river Parthenius, as Ptolemy writes, Where he had previously lived. Table 1 of Asia, chapter 1. Pliny, book 6, chapter 2, assigns it to Paphlagonia and says it was formerly called Sesamum. But what island it was on which the holy man's monastery stood, the cited authors do not report. The islands called the Erethini, or Erythini, or Erythrini rocks are placed by some near Heraclea, by others near Amastris: was his seat on one of these? Or was it the one called Trogessos? The Chronicle of Nicephorus has this: "69th. Cyrus, Priest and monk, from Trogessos of Amastris, 6 years. Expelled by Philippicus." At what time Justinian came to Cyrus is not established. Perhaps he was carried there when he was being deported to Cherson, or when he fled from Cherson before entrusting himself to the Chagan.
[5] What Cyrus did in his episcopate has not been recorded in writing. It is likely that he vigorously opposed the Monothelite heresy, and refuted the additions that had been attached to the Fifth and Sixth Synods through the fraud of the impious Callinicus; and that on this account he was afterward the author of Justinian's summoning of Pope Constantine to Constantinople, Pope Constantine is invited to Constantinople. so that by his authority all controversy about the faith might be settled in person. The most holy Pontiff, about to go to the Emperor, departed from Rome on October 5, Indiction 9, that is, the year of Christ 710. While he delayed at Otranto, says Anastasius the Librarian in his Life of Constantine, because it was winter, he there received the Imperial seal through Theophanius the regionarius, containing a provision that wherever the aforesaid Pontiff should happen to arrive, all the judges should receive him honorably, as if they were seeing the Emperor himself in person. Whence, setting out and reaching the regions of Greece, on the island called Cea (Cia by Ptolemy, by others Ceos, in the Aegean Sea, formerly torn from Euboea, as Pliny attests, book 4, chapter 12), Theophilus, Patrician and Strategus of the Carabisians, met him, He is honorably received by Tiberius Caesar and Bishop Cyrus. received him with the highest honor, and embracing him as the order commanded, completed the journey he had begun. From which place, sailing, they came to the seventh milestone from Constantinople. Where Tiberius the Emperor, son of the Augustus Justinian, went out to meet him with the Patricians and all the Nobles (Baronius reads, "and the entire Senate, or Syncletus"), and Cyrus the Patriarch with the clergy and a multitude of the people, all rejoicing and keeping a festive day, etc.
[6] Then he adds concerning the meeting with Justinian also: "The lord Justinian the Emperor, hearing of his arrival, filled with great joy, sent from Nicaea in Bithynia a sacra full of thanksgiving; Especially by the Emperor Justinian. and that the Pontiff should go to meet him at Nicomedia, and he himself would come from Nicaea — which was also done. On the day when they saw each other, the most Christian Emperor, with the crown on his head, prostrated himself, kissing the feet of the Pontiff. Then they fell into a mutual embrace: and there was great joy among the people, all beholding such great humility of the good Prince. On the Lord's Day he celebrated Mass for the Emperor: and the Prince, communicating from his hands and asking that the Pontiff would intercede for his offenses, renewed all the privileges of the Church and dismissed the most holy Pope to return to his own." The same is reported briefly by Bede and Paul the Deacon. By the counsel of Cyrus. Raderus rightly conjectures that all these things were done by the counsel of the most pious Patriarch, to whom the Emperor, especially in sacred matters, deferred very greatly.
[7] What was furthermore done there can be gathered from what the same Anastasius writes in his account of Gregory II, Constantine's successor: "Then he was promoted to the order of the Diaconate; What the Pope did there. and, having set out with the holy man, Pope Constantine, to the royal city, he was questioned by Prince Justinian concerning certain chapters, and resolved each question with the best response, etc." That the discussion chiefly concerned the chapters added to the Fifth and Sixth Synods through the work of Callinicus is evident, as we shall say in the entry on Sergius on September 9 and on Gregory II on February 13. When the Emperor had begun to exact a monstrous vengeance upon the people of Cherson, and having sent a new army had determined to utterly destroy Cherson and kill the citizens without discrimination, Pope Constantine attempted to recall him from such bloody and dangerous counsels. Thus Paul the Deacon, cited above: "Who, when he was sending an army into Pontus to seize Philippicus, whom he had banished there, the same venerable Pope greatly forbade him, that he should not do this: but nevertheless he was unable to prevent it." Bede reports the same in his work On the Six Ages.
[8] "Setting out therefore from the city of Nicomedia," says Anastasius, "the Pontiff, worn down by frequent illnesses, He returns to Rome. at length, with God granting him safety, arrived unharmed at the port of Gaeta, where he found priests and a very great multitude of the Roman people, and on the 24th day of October, Indiction 10 (that is, the year of Christ 711), he entered Rome: and all the people exulted and rejoiced." But after three months a mournful report resounded: that the most Christian and orthodox Emperor Justinian had been slaughtered, and that Philippicus, a heretic, had been promoted to the Imperial citadel. Justinian is killed. So Anastasius. How these events transpired is narrated more fully by Nicephorus, Zonaras, Cedrenus, and others already cited. Maurus the Patrician, who had been sent to destroy Cherson, finding it fortified by a Khazar garrison, and unable either to press the siege or to dare to return to the Emperor, conspiring with the Chersonites, proclaimed the exile Bardanes as Emperor and called him by the changed name Philippicus. He then slew the Emperor Justinian — orthodox indeed, but excessively severe and cruel — and his son Tiberius. These events took place at the end of the year 711 or the beginning of 712.
[9] What then happened to Patriarch Cyrus, the cited authors relate. Cyrus is expelled. Zonaras: "He drove Cyrus the Patriarch from the Church, which he had held for six years, and installed his own supporter Joannes in it." Cedrenus agrees. The Miscella, book 20, chapter 20: "Philippicus found Joannes to be of his own persuasion, whom he made Bishop of Constantinople, having deposed the Prelate Cyrus, whom he also banished to exile in the monastery of the Chora." Petavius in his Notes on Nicephorus reports that in Theophanes the reading is "in the monastery of Lora," but it should be restored to "Chora." This is the very same monastery that is called in the Menaea "the venerable monastery of the Chora." Where it was situated is explained by the Venerable Bede, who was then living: "He expelled Cyrus from the pontificate and ordered him to return to Pontus, to govern his own monastery by the right of Abbot." The same is found in Marianus Scotus and Paul the Deacon. From this, moreover, it can be conjectured that those things which were done cruelly by Justinian had always been disapproved by Cyrus: otherwise some enmity could easily have been stirred up against him on that account; nor would the bloodthirsty Bardanes have restrained his hand from him.
[10] How long Cyrus survived is not established. It can be conjectured that he by no means survived to the year 715; When he died. for in that year the orthodox Emperor Artemius Anastasius, having expelled the heretic Joannes, transferred St. Germanus, Bishop of Cyzicus, to Constantinople; whom Petavius reports, from Theophanes in his notes on Nicephorus, to have been ousted from his own see at the same time and for the same reason as Cyrus. But if Cyrus had been alive, neither would Artemius have given his chair to another, nor would the most holy Germanus have accepted it — he who was obligated to record his name, whether living or dead, in the diptychs. Concerning Germanus we shall treat on May 12.
[11] Demochares corrected. Entirely recklessly does Antonius Demochares, in his work On the Divine Sacrifice of the Mass, chapter 10, call Cyrus a heretic — a man who, as we have seen, was reduced to the ranks by a heretical Emperor, so that by the installation of a heretic the orthodox religion might be undermined.