CIPRO

CYPRIA. — By surface area (9,283 sq. km.), it is the third largest island in the Mediterranean.

SUMMARY:

I. Geography

II. History

III. Church History

IV. Archaeology.

I. GEOGRAPHY

Physically a part of nearby Anatolia (75 km. distant), it consists of a rolling plain (Messaria) enclosed by two mountain ranges: one to the north (Karpaso Peninsula, Mt. Akromandra, 1,029 m.), and one to the south, higher and broader (Troodos, 1,953 m.). The climate is mild, but with long, hot summers and scant rainfall. Agricultural (cereals, vines, olives) and industrial possibilities (iron, asbestos, copper deposits, etc.) are not lacking, but the economy has been stagnant for centuries. Of the island’s 450,000 inhabitants, slightly less than three-quarters are Greek; the remainder are Turkish Muslims.

The island was occupied by Great Britain in 1878 and detached from Turkish dependency in 1914. Since 1 May 1925 it has been a Crown Colony under a royal governor. It is divided into six districts; the seat of government is at Nicosia (35,000 inhabitants). Other notable centres are Limassol (23,000), Larnaca (15,000) and Famagusta (2,000), though the latter is in serious decline.

MAP: Historical Cyprus: 1. titular metropolitan and archiepiscopal sees; 2. titular episcopal sees; 3. suppressed titular sees; 4. monasteries; 5. roads; 6. railways.
London 1919; H. W. Flinn, Cyprus. A Brief Survey of its History and Development, Cyprus 1924; R. Storrs, B. J. O’Brien, The Handbook of Cyprus, London 1930; K. Grunwald, Lo sviluppo economico dell’isola di C. dal 1919 al 1930, in Oriente moderno, II (1931), pp. 506-17.

II. HISTORY

In ancient times, the fertility and wealth of the soil are attested by classical writers (Strabo, XVI, 6, 5; Amm. Marc., XIV, 8, 14). From this derives the Greek name Kūrōpō, whence comes the Latin *cuprum*, the name for copper extracted from the island’s abundant mines from earliest times. The exploitation of this metal must have brought the island prosperity and importance. Babylonian cylinders bear witness to its commercial relations with Mesopotamia as early as the mid-3rd millennium.

Under the name of Alashiya, it appears in the inscriptions of Thutmose III (1470) and in the el-‘Amārnah tablets (a letter from the Cypriot king to Amenhotep IV in 1385). Later, Greek colonies penetrated the island, founding Salamis and Paphos. During the Iron Age (1700–600) further Greek and Phoenician settlers arrived. The Greeks gave the island the name Kūrōpō, already found in Homer, while the Phoenicians called it Kittim (= Citium), a name adopted by the Bible (Gen. 10:4; Num. 2:4; [Dan. 11:30]; Isa. 23:1, 12; Jer. 2:10; Ezek. 27:6).

In the Assyrian annals of Sargon, of which the island was a vassal—as attested by a stele erected at Citium with an image and inscription—it is called Iatnan. After the fall of the Assyrian empire (626), it briefly returned to Egyptian influence and in 526 was incorporated into the Persian empire, forming, together with Phoenicia, Syria and Palestine, the fifth satrapy. In 497 it joined the anti-Persian revolt; but the true champion of Hellenism against the Phoenician element was Evagoras in the struggles of 394–374. The complete Hellenization of the island occurred after Alexander the Great’s victory. Disputed by his successors, Cyprus ended up united with the Ptolemies of Egypt. In 108–88 Jews began to settle on the island (1 Macc. 15:23; 2 Macc. 4:29; 10:13; 12:2) and increased in number when, in 58 B.C., the island was annexed by the Romans to Cilicia. Augustus made it an imperial province, governed by a pro-praetor (Strabo, XIV, 6, 6; XVII, 3, 25); but in 22 B.C. it became a senatorial province, administered by a proconsul of praetorian rank (Dio Cassius, 54, 4).

After Herod leased the copper mines from Augustus (Flavius Josephus, *Antiquitates Iudaicae*, XVI, 120), Jews settled in all the cities of the

After the martyrdom of St Stephen, many Christians dispersed in Cyprus (Acts 11:19-20). Barnabas, a Hellenist Jew and companion of Paul, was a native of Cyprus, from a family of the tribe of Levi (Acts 4:36). On the first missionary journey Paul, with Barnabas and Mark, evangelised the island, traversing it in its entirety from Salamis to Paphos, where the proconsul Sergius Paulus resided — at that time Cyprus was a senatorial province in whose presence the dispute between St Paul and the false prophet Bar-Jesus took place (Acts 13:4-12). After the Apostolic Council, at the beginning of the second missionary journey, Barnabas parted from Paul and returned to the island (Acts 15:39). St Paul crossed the sea of Cyprus on his journey from Caesarea to Rome (Acts 27:4).

After these early notices history lapses and legend takes its place, which, though it may have a substratum of truth, offers no certainty: it centres especially on Barnabas, and also on John Mark and Heracleides, the first Cypriot bishop ordained by Paul or Barnabas. The next historical notices reappear with the persecution of Diocletian (Palestinian Christians exiled in Cyprus [Eusebius, De martyr. Palaest.: PG 20, 1513]) and with the Council of Nicaea (325), to which three Cypriot bishops subscribed (H. Gelzer, Patrum Nicamorum nomina, Leipzig 1898). At the beginning of the fifth century the metropolitans of Antioch began to advance their claims to the election of the Cypriot metropolitan (certainly in memory of the fact that Antioch had been the capital of the imperial diocese of the East), and even Pope Innocent I (415) inclined in favour of Antioch, but the Council of Ephesus tacitly recognised the independence (autocephaly) of the Church of Cyprus and for the time being all was silent. When the question revived in the time of Emperor Zeno, it was resolved in favour of Cyprus, thanks to the discovery by Anthemios, metropolitan of Salamis, of the tomb of St Barnabas. From the whole of the facts, however, it seems that this discovery, though contrived for a particular purpose, does not conceal deceit or fraud. In 645 the metropolitan Sergius, condemning the Monothelites, openly attested Roman primacy in a letter to Pope Theodore I (Mansi, X, 913-16). Cyprus, already subjected from 632 to Arab invasions, was gradually conquered by them. The Byzantine reconquest began in the mid-ninth century and ended by the mid-tenth. Cyprus thus came under the Comneni, whose rule, initially good, degenerated into tyranny, creating favourable ground for Latin occupation. Indeed in 1191 Richard the Lionheart took possession of the island, which he ceded to the Templars; from them it passed to Guy of Lusignan.

As regards its orthodoxy, the fact that the Greek schism did not occur suddenly, but gradually and chiefly for political reasons and antagonism rather than doctrinal rebellion, and the other fact that the Cypriot Church remained always independent, lead to the conclusion that it essentially maintained Catholic orthodoxy. This was perhaps not understood by the Latin rulers, whose chief concern was to convert the Cypriots by Latinising them. Hence that painful period of conflict which unfortunately drove the Greek Church of Cyprus ever more decisively towards the schism of the East. In the struggle against the Greeks the legate Cardinal Pelagius, bishop of Albano, was most tenacious.

The Latin hierarchy, introduced into the island from the beginning of the thirteenth century, was constantly at odds with the Greek hierarchy and clergy, and almost always prevailed. Conditions for the Greeks improved somewhat under Innocent IV, who recognised the election of the Greek metropolitan Germanus II and sought to calm the imprudent zeal of the Latin metropolitan Hugh of Fagiano. This work of pacification, conducted chiefly through the prudence of the legate Cardinal Eudes of Châteauroux, lasted but a short time; the disputes between Greeks and Latins reopened and Alexander VI settled them with his bull of 3 July 1260, by which the Greek dioceses had the same boundaries as the Latin ones, the bishops the same honours, and were to swear loyalty to the Roman Church and not to the Latin metropolitan as had previously been imposed; the metropolitan, however, was to be single and of Latin rite. This bull satisfied neither Greeks nor Latins and remained largely a dead letter; indeed the Greek Church, now definitively slipping towards schism, flourished under Queen Helena Palaeologa, wife of John II (1442). In 1498 Cyprus passed to Venice, and for the Greeks the hard times recommenced, so much so that they greeted with enthusiasm the Turkish occupation of 1571. But this was short-lived, for the Turks proceeded to persecute both Latins and Greeks fiercely; once the storm had passed, a relative calm returned from the religious point of view, though from the social and economic standpoint the condition of the Cypriots was harsh and barely alleviated by the care of the metropolitans. In 1821, with the outbreak of the Greek revolution, the bishops of Cyprus and the notables of the island were massacred at Nicosia by the Turks. With the British occupation (1878, under the metropolitan Sophronius, d. 1900), Protestantism began to infiltrate the Cypriot Church, while at the same time showing the greatest respect for II. At present, of about 450,000 inhabitants, 300,000 are schismatic Greeks and their metropolitan resides in Nicosia; the other Greek dioceses are Larnaca, Paphos and Kyrenia. There are 60,000 Maronite Catholics (v. CIPRUS OF THE MARONITES); 855 Latin (Catholic) faithful depend on the patriarchate of Jerusalem. The remainder of the population is predominantly Muslim. Each confession has its own elementary schools and the religious peace of the island today is complete.

Francesco Saverio Pericoli Ridolfini

IV. Archaeological

The various occupations of the island by the Byzantines and Muslims caused the ruin of much of the oldest Christian buildings. The memory of the preaching of St Paul and Barnabas, a Cypriot, is still alive in various localities of Cyprus. Near the church of Hagios Barnabas (Salamis) there is a cave identified as the tomb of St Barnabas, whose body, in the 5th century, would have been transferred to Constantinople.

Of churches prior to the 6th century only traces remain; remains of one were discovered at Salamis, later Constantia from the name of the emperor Constantius (337-61) and destroyed by the Arabs in 648. Contemporary with Bishop Epiphanius (368-404), or shortly after (5th century?), are the ruins of a five-aisled basilica with square pillars and a single apse to the east (m. 70 X 40); many tesserae from the mosaic decoration found during excavations suggest that the walls, if not the vaults, were decorated with mosaics (G. Jeffery, in *Journal of the Soc. of Antiquaries in London*, 8 [1928], pp. 344-49; G. A. Sotiriou, in *Κύπρος Σπουδαί*, 1 [1937], pp. 175-87). In an ancient cistern, reused in the Christian era as a *hagiasma*, mural paintings are noted, including a bust of a bearded Christ with a cruciform halo, perhaps from the 6th century. Remains of a 7th-century mosaic pavement are at Kerynia (*Report of Dep. Ant. of Cyprus*, 1935, p. 4); a baptistery, attached to the 5th-century church of St Philon on which the 14th-century church was later built, is at Carpasia (ibid., pp. 14-16).

As in the classical period, the Christians of Cyprus also carved tombs into the rock or occupied those of their predecessors, but traces of open-air cemeteries are not lacking (G. A. Sotiriou, *Τὰ παλαιοχριστιανὰ καὶ βυζαντινὰ μνημεῖα τῆς Κύπρου*, in *Praktika* [of the Academy of Athens], 6 [1931], pp. 477-90; id., in *Κύπρος Παράματα*, 2 [1936], p. 309 sg.). From them come Christograms and symbols, scattered in various places. Few and rare are the inscriptions; one from the 4th century at Lapeithos contains perhaps one of the oldest texts of the *Septuagint* (Ps. 14; 15 of the Hebrew text). It is uncertain, according to the editors (P. Perdrizet, *Notes sur Chypre*, in *Bull. corr. hell.*, 20 [1869], p. 349 sg.; E. Michon, *Inscr. chrét. de Chypre*, in *Bulletin de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France*, 1901, p. 186 sg.), whether it is a Christian inscription used as a magical text, or whether it comes from a synagogue or a Jewish tomb.

In the monastery of the Panaghia Kanakaria, near Lythrangomé, there is a Byzantine church with a mosaic in the apse depicting the *Virgin with Child between two angels* (late 6th century). Prior to 648 is the mosaic in the apse of the Panaghia Angeloktistós at Kiti near Larnaca with the *Madonna and Child* (HAITA MAPIA) and the two archangels Michael and Gabriel. Unpublished remains of a third mosaic with the Virgin are in the church of *Παναγία τῆς Κύπρου* (O. Wulff, *Altchristliche und byzantinische Kunst*, Berlin 1911, p. 432).

Among the rare sculptures: various fragments of a marble basin from Lapeithos (according to E. Michon, in *Bulletin de la Société nationale des Antiquaires de France*, 1908, p. 274 sg., 278; cf. DACL, III, 11, col. 3210 sg.), with the sacrifice of Abraham and David with the sling. The goldsmith objects discovered at Lapeithos and in the monastery of Akeriopetos (Kernyia) are dispersed between the museum of Nicosia, the British Museum and the Pierpont Morgan collection. It is a notable group for number and artistic quality; hexagonal censers with sacred figures in relief, 24 silver spoons, small and large *missoria*, some figured, are products of Syria or Constantinople or perhaps local, inspired by foreign models.

In a reliquary casket in the monastery of Kikko a small ivory plaque depicting St Peter is set into the front; it dates from the 6th century (R. P. Griffing, *An early christian ivory plaque in Cyprus and Notes of the Asiatic Ampulla*, in *The Art Bulletin*, 20 [1939], pp. 266-79).