CIRIACO di ANTIOCHIA. - Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch, who lived in the eighth century. A monk in the monastery of Bizonà or “of the columns” near Callinico, he was elected patriarch and ordained at Harràn on 15 Aug. 793. Information concerning his life is derived from the Ecclesiastical Chronicle of Bar Ebreo (I, Louvain 1872–77, p. 329 ff.; G. S. Assemani, Bibl. Or., II, Rome 1724, pp. 116, 341–44). He introduced important liturgical reforms and promoted a short-lived union with the patriarch of the Julianists. He had a controversy with the monks of Cirro and Gubbà Barràja over the expression “Panem caelestem frangimus,” which he forbade them to use in the liturgy. A schism ensued.
There remain of C.: 40 canons (W. W. Wright, Cat. of Syr. Manuscripts in the British Museum, I, London 1870, p. 222, col. 2) of the Synod of Bèt-Bòtin; an Anaphora (id., loc. cit., pp. 206, 210); the decree of union with the Julianists (ms. Brit. Mus. Add. 17145, f. 27 b¹); writings of an administrative character, homilies on theological subjects, and a synodal letter to Marco di Alessandria, of which only an Arabic recension survives.
Francesco Saverio Pericoli Ridolfini