Cyril Lucaris

Hieromartyr Cyrillos Lukaris, also Cyril I Lucaris, Cyril Loukaris or Cyril Lucar, was a Greek prelate and theologian. He was Patriarch of Alexandria as Cyril III from 1601 to 1620 and Patriarch of Constantinople as Cyril I for five different periods from 1620 until 1638. He was the first great name in the Orthodox Church after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, and dominated its history in the seventeenth century.

Although the Calvinist confession attributed to him caused great controversy in the Orthodox Church, Hieromartyr Cyril Lucaris (†1638) was honoured as a Saint and Martyr shortly after his martyric death, and the Venerable Saint Eugenios of Aitolia (†1682, August 5) compiled an Akolouthia (Service) to celebrate his memory. The official glorification of Hieromartyr Cyril Loukaris took place by decision of the Holy Synod of the Patriarchate of Alexandria on October 6, 2009, and his memory is commemorated on June 27.

Life

Cyril Lucaris was born in Candia (Heraklion), Crete on November 13, 1572 during the time Crete was occupied by the Venetian Republic. In his early youth he studied under a number of eminent scholars including Maximus Marguius, Bishop of Kythira. For his later education he traveled through Europe, studied at Venice, Padua, and Geneva. In Geneva, he came under the influence of the reformed faith as represented by John Calvin. He developed a great antipathy toward Roman Catholicism after he had pursued theological studies in Venice, Padua, Wittenberg, and Geneva. In addition to being fluent in Greek, he learned Latin thoroughly during his student days.

He was ordained a deacon in 1593, when he was 21 years old and, later, was ordained a priest by Patriarch Meletius Pegas, Patriarch of Alexandria.

Patr. Meletius Pegas sent Cyril to Poland in 1596 to lead the opposition by the Orthodox to the Union of Brest that proposed a union of Kiev with Rome. During this time, he was a professor at the Orthodox academy in Vilnus, now the capital of Lithuania. In 1601, he was elected Patriarch of Alexandria, succeeding Patr. Meletius Pegas, a position he filled with dedication for nineteen years. During this time he re-organized the finances of the patriarchate and repaired churches in addition to preaching and maintaining constant correspondence with the Patriarch of Jerusalem and Cyprus.

In 1612, he was locum tenens of the Church of Constantinople for a short time. On November 4, 1620, the Holy Synod of Constantinople elected Cyril Patriarch of Constantinople. His patriarchate was broken into five different periods: 1620 to 1623, 1623 to 1633, 1633 to 1634, 1634 to 1635, and 1637 to 1638, by intrigues involving the the papacy, reformists, Jesuits, and the Ottoman sultan that included schemes against Cyril to discredit him by spreading rumors he was a Calvinist. After each deposition, Patr. Cyril was re-elected by the clergy supported by the Orthodox population.

It is alleged that the great aim of his life was to reform the Church on Calvinistic lines, and to this end he sent many young Greek theologians to the universities of Switzerland, the northern Netherlands and England. In 1629, his famous Confessio (Calvinistic in doctrine) was published in Latin, but as far as possible accommodated to the language and creeds of the Orthodox Church. From 1629 to 1633, it appeared in two Latin editions, four French, one German and one English. The "Confession" started a controversy in the Eastern Church which culminated in 1672 in the convocation by Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem, of a synod by which the Calvinistic doctrines were condemned. Since then, eminent historians, theologians, and researchers have attempted to clarify whether Cyril Lucaris was the actual author of the "Confession" attributed by the Calvinists to him. While Cyril denied it verbally a number of times and proclaimed his Orthodox faith in his letters as well by his attitude, he did not disavow the "Confession" in writing. The orthodoxy of Cyril Lucaris himself has continued to be a matter of debate in the Eastern Church. Even Dositheus, in view of the reputation of the great patriarch, thought it expedient to gloss over his heterodoxy in the interests of the Church.

Cyril was also particularly well disposed towards the Anglican Church, and his correspondence with the Archbishops of Canterbury is extremely interesting. Through his contacts with the Church of England, he also set up a program of sending young Greeks to England to study. Among these students was the youth from Macedonia, Metrophanes Kritopoulos who later would become Patriarch of Alexandria. Both Cyril and Metrophanes were lovers of books and manuscripts, and acquired manuscripts that today adorn the Patriarchal Library. Cyril also presented King James I of England with a fine manuscript of the Holy Bible, known as Codex Alexandrinus. He also sent a manuscript of the Pentateuch, with Arabic translation, to Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Martyrdom

While Cyril was several times deposed temporarily and banished at the instigation of his orthodox opponents and of the Jesuits, who were his bitterest enemies, his death came suddenly. According to Professor Christos Patrinellis:

"The Catholic Church used all its religious and political influence to destroy this "son of darkness": the Jesuits and Capuchins of Constantinople, the French and Austrian ambassadors, the newly constituted Propaganda Fidei, Pope Urban VIII himself and even Louis XIII and the powerful Cardinal Richelieu. Almost any means of attacking Loukaris were regarded as legitimate because the motive was "sacred": these included threats and violence, bribing Turkish officials and pro-Catholic clerics in the circle of his successor Cyril Kontares, forging texts incriminating Loukaris, and claiming that the patriarch was inciting foreign powers against the Ottoman Empire. The Austrian Embassy planned Loukaris' assasination or his abduction to Italy and delivered to the Holy Inquisition. Eventually the Austrian ambassador and Kontares persuaded the Sublime Porte to eliminate the patriarch and he was strangled on June 27, 1638."

Thus, when the Ottoman Sultan Murad IV was about to set out for the Persian War, the patriarch was accused of a design to stir up the Cossacks. and the Sultan had Cyril strangled by the Janissaries on June 27, 1638. His body was thrown into the Bosporus and was later recovered after being washed ashore on Halki Island. His body was buried at the Monastery of Panagia Kamariotissa on Halki by Patr. Parthenius I.

Historical Assessment

According to Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna:

"Despite Western references to Patriarch Kyrillos’ wide contacts with the Reformers, he is in fact most famous in the Orthodox world for his anti-Papist stand against the Uniate menace and for his opposition to Jesuit missions in Eastern Europe. His contacts in Eastern Europe, where he studied, served, and traveled, were extensive. His opposition to Uniate Catholicism after the Brzeesc-Litewski Treaty of 1596 was so strong and widespread, that his so-called "Confession," whatever its true source, is a mere footnote to his struggle against Papism. It was THIS anti-Latin Loukaris who supported Protestant opposition to Papism, who perhaps allowed his views to be restated and published by his Calvinist contacts in Geneva, and who earned the enduring hatred of the Papacy, which has played an essential role — if one reads the intellectual history surrounding this issue — in perpetuating the idea that the "Confessio" was the direct work of Kyrillos and that he was a Protestant in his thinking."

In addition, according to professor Dionysios Zakythinós:

"in the bold policy of this Patriarch...we find mixed and mingled many of the conflicting trends which distracted the Greek community of the seventeenth century with a multitude of warring influences — conservatism against reform; Orthodox mysticism against the materialistic rationalism of the West; traditional Byzantinism against the emerging spirit of the new Greece. Buffeted between the Ottoman authorities on the one side and the Western powers on the other, battling against the infiltration of Roman Catholicism, Cyril Loukaris gave his own original reply to the problem of relations between Orthodoxy and Western Christianity. In doing so he 'crystallized and translated into action the confused aspirations of a Greece which was just beginning to collect its thoughts with a view to making contact with Western civilization.' His attempted reform of the clergy, his introduction of a calendar dated from the Nativity of Christ in place of the old Byzantine chronology dated from the Creation, the establishment by Nicodemus Metaxas, at Constantinople, of the first Greek press in the East (1627), the translation of the New Testament into popular Greek (Geneva, 1638) 'are works of mark, witnessing to the breadth of view and the bold initiative of this great reformer'."

Succession box: Cyril Lucaris
Preceded by: Meletius I	Patriarch of Alexandria 1601-1620	Succeeded by: Gerassimus I
Preceded by: Neophytus II	Patriarch of Constantinople locus tenens 1612-1612	Succeeded by: Timothy II
Preceded by: Timothy II	Patriarch of Constantinople 1620-1623	Succeeded by: Gregory IV
Preceded by: Anthimus II	Patriarch of Constantinople 1623-1633	Succeeded by: Cyril II Kontares
Preceded by: Cyril II Kontares	Patriarch of Constantinople 1633-1634	Succeeded by: Athanasius III Patelaros
Preceded by: Athanasius III Patelaros	Patriarch of Constantinople 1634-1635	Succeeded by: Cyril II Kontares
Preceded by: Neophytus III	Patriarch of Constantinople 1637-1638	Succeeded by: Cyril II Kontares

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See also

• Anglican Communion
• Western Rite

Sources

• Ec-patr: Cyril Lucarius - Church of Constantinople website
• Cyril Lucaris at Wikipedia
• This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, which is in the public domain (see also entry in the latest online edition of Encyclopædia Britannica).

External links

• Cyril Lucar from The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. III: Chamier - Draendorf by Philip Schaff at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• The Myth of the "Calvinist Patriarch" by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna
• Cyril Lucaris (Short bio with picture)
• Review by Glanville Downey of Protestant Patriarch: The Life of Cyril Lucaris (1572-1638); Patriarch of Constantinople by George A. Hadjiantoniou
• Progress Towards the Re-Union of the Orthodox and Anglican Churches by the Most Rev. Archbishop Germanos, Metropolitan of Thyatira
• Archbishop Germanos on Anglicanism by Canon J. A. Douglas, Ph.D. (a response to the above "Progress Towards the Re-Union of the Orthodox and Anglican Churches"

Writings

• The Confession of Cyril Lucar, A.D. 1631. from Creeds of Christendom at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library
• The Confession of Cyril Lucaris