Cyprian

Cyprian¹

Saint. ?200--258 ad, bishop of Carthage and martyr. Feast day: Sept. 26 or 16

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Cyprian²

1. of or relating to Cyprus

2. of or resembling the ancient orgiastic worship of Aphrodite on Cyprus

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Cyprian 

Born c. 1336; died Sept. 16, 1406. Metropolitan of all Rus’ from 1390.

Cyprian was a Bulgarian by nationality. In 1375 the patriarch of Constantinople appointed him metropolitan of Kiev and Lithuania. As a result of intrigues, he became the metropolitan of Moscow in 1381, but soon (1382), after his flight from Moscow when it was threatened by Tokhtamysh, he was removed from the Muscovite principality. He returned to Moscow in 1390 under Vasilii I Dmitrievich, whose policies he supported in every way possible. Under Cyprian’s rule the church in all the Russian lands was united, including that in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Cyprian initiated the compilation of the Troitskaia (Trinity) Chronicle and probably the Metropolitan’s Law Code. He reworked the Life of Metropolitan Peter, which had been written earlier (possibly in 1327), making it more rhetorical and magnificent. He also translated Greek ecclesiastical works and wrote epistles to Sergius of Radonezh and others. Cyprian was recognized by the church as a saint and was canonized in the 15th century.

REFERENCES

Snegarov, I. “K istorii kul’turnykh sviazei mezhdu Bolgariei i Rossiei v kontse XIV-nachale XV v.” In the collection Mezhdunarodnye sviazi Rossii do XVII v. Moscow, 1961.
Sakharov, A. M. “Tserkov’ i obrazovanie russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva.” Voprosy istorii, 1966, no. 1.