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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 331

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of his life, made against his will Archbishop of Alexandria. Such was the charity of this saintly and benevolent man towards the poor that one day when he returned home weeping and wailing, and his friend Sophronios asked him the reason, he replied, " To-day, for my many sins, I have been unable to offer anything to my 1-iord Christ." It was he first who frustrated tho addition to the hymn Trisagton. When the Arabs invaded Egypt he retired to his mother country, and lived there in peace until 616, when at the age of 57 he gave up his saintly soul to God. Neophytus, the monk or anchorite, a native of the island, who flourished about 122*2. He was chosen Arehbishop of Cyprus, but was expelled by the Latins. A few short sermons for certain Sundays and holy days survive him. George, a Cypriot who flourished about 1283, was Patriarch of Constantinople nnder Andronico» the Elder, in whose palace he had been a chaplain. A remarkable orator, who restored in his writings the lofty rhythm of the Hellenic tongue, and its Attic purity, which had been so long buried in oblivion, and by his tasto and care gave it new light and life. Anxious for a life of quiet he put aside honours and dignities, and sought rest first in a con-vent of the " Guides," and then in that of S. Andreas, where in no long time he died. Hilarion Kigallae, another Cypriot-, flourished about 1C60. He studied at Venice and Padua» and excelled in Latin and Italian learning. While yet a monk, happening to be in Jerusalem he was of mnch use to Nectarios of Sinai, Patriarch of Jerusalem, who was writing against the authority of the Pope, as the interpreter of several Latin Fathers of weight. Then he became Arehbishop of Cyprus. He wrote a Greek grammar, and while he was at Constan-tinople, and writing abont the fixity of the Paschal Feast, death overtook him. Philip, Protosyncellos of the Great Church, was the compatriot and contemporary of Kigallas : a learned man, and not without prudence, who assisted at the two Synods at Con-stantinople which condemned the Lnthero-Cahinistic confession. He wrote a Chronicle in Greek and Latin of the Patriarchs of Constantinople down to 1639. Esaias, the Cypriot, a strict monk, from whose hand there survives in print a letter to Nicolaos Clengias. He was the founder of the royal and autonomous'Monastery of Kykko, and lived as a hermit on the mountains around it in the days of Alexios Comnenos. By his prayers he relieved Manuel Boutometes, the Governor of the island, from a lethargic affec-tion, and enjoined upon him by all means to bring to Cyprus the picture of the Mother of God preserved in the Imperial Palace, being one of three painted by the Apostle Luke, for such was the will of the Lord, and of the Blessed Virgin. And while he was in Constantinople it happened that the daughter of the Emperor fell sick of a lethargy, which gave to Boutometes an opportunity to tell Alexios what the hennit Esaias had enjoined him. Nor in any other way could the Princess be healed ; and at length the Emperor, warned by a vision, gave his consent, and sent to the saint on an imperial vessel, and with imperial rescripts, the now wonder-working picture. Having attained his desire, with money received from the Emperor through the Duke of Cyprus, Esaias built the holy monastery on the mount Kokkos, now called Kykkos. CONSTANTI HS. 321 41

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