CYPRIAN, ZAMBLAK. - A dissident metropolitan venerated as a saint by the Russian Church on September 17, born in Tirnovo (Bulgaria), died in 1406. Having become a monk on Mount Athos, he was consecrated metropolitan of Kiev and Lithuania by Philotheus, with the right of succession to the see of Moscow, which he obtained, not without obstacles, in 1390. He opposed the Strigolniki, heretics of Novgorod who denied the resurrection of the dead, and, faced with liturgical decline and growing nationalism, he promoted the Byzantine approach. C. left behind dogmatic, juridical, and hagiographical writings, as well as a paleoslavic version of Philotheus’s liturgy.
Bibl.: A. M. Ammann, Storia della Chiesa russa, Torino 1947 (v. indice).