Cyprian the New of Koutloumousiou
The Holy New Venerable-Martyr Cyprian of Koutloumousiou, who suffered at Constantinople
Venerable Martyr · New Martyr · Priest · b. Klitsos in the Agrapha (Evrytania) — d. 5 July 1679, at Constantinople
Commemorated 5 July — Beheading at the Phanar in Constantinople, 1679
Cyprian the New was a hieromonk of the Holy Mountain, of the cell of Saint George dependent on the monastery of Koutloumousiou, who was beheaded at Constantinople on 5 July 1679. Born at Klitsos in the Agrapha of central Greece, he embraced the monastic life young, was ordained priest, and on Athos was known for a life of strict virtue and for a settled longing for martyrdom. He went down first to Thessalonica and confessed Christ before the judge, exhorting the court itself to abandon Islam; taken for a madman, he was beaten and thrown out. Undeterred, he went on to Constantinople, made his way into the Vizier's presence and preached there the same confession. Handed over to the Mufti, offered honours and threatened with death, he refused to deny Christ and was beheaded at the Phanar.
The Agrapha and the Holy Mountain
Cyprian was born of Christian parents in the village of Klitsos (Kleitsos, Klitzos) in the district of the Agrapha, in the mountains of Evrytania — the "unwritten" country whose inaccessibility kept it comparatively free under the Ottomans, and which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries gave the Church an unusual number of teachers, monks and new-martyrs. Brought up piously, he took the monastic habit while still young, and was in time ordained to the priesthood.
He came thence to Mount Athos, and settled in the cell of Saint George belonging to the monastery of Koutloumousiou, above Karyes. The account preserved of him says that he lived there in such virtue that the fathers of the Mountain held him up as an example; he is also remembered as having spent time in the wilderness at the far end of the peninsula, near the Great Lavra of Athanasius the Athonite.
The desire for martyrdom
What marks Cyprian out among the Athonite new-martyrs is that his martyrdom was not forced on him. He was under no compulsion, had not apostatised and had nothing to retract; he sought the contest. This deliberate seeking-out of martyrdom was a phenomenon of the period, and one on which the Athonite fathers themselves were divided — the later Neomartyrologion of Nicodemus the Hagiorite records both the admiration and the caution with which such acts were regarded, since the Church has never commanded a man to provoke his own death. Cyprian's spiritual fathers are said to have tried to restrain him.
He went down first to Thessalonica. Entering the tribunal, he confessed Christ openly before the judge and, the account says, called on the whole court — the judge included — to leave the faith of Muhammad and turn to Christ. He was taken for a lunatic; he was struck, mocked and driven out of the city rather than tried.
Martyrdom at Constantinople
Returning to Athos and finding his longing unabated, he went to Constantinople. There he contrived to come before the Grand Vizier himself, and made in the palace the same confession he had made at Thessalonica, preaching Christ and reproaching Islam. The Vizier tried first inducement — the promise of honours and preferment if he would accept the faith of the Porte — and then threat; Cyprian would have neither, and repeated his confession. He was handed over to the Mufti, whose sentence was death.
He was led out and beheaded at the Phanar, the Greek quarter of the city, on 5 July 1679, giving thanks. The Christians of the quarter took up his body and buried it with honour, and the memory of the martyrdom passed into the Athonite record; his service and the notice of his passion were gathered with the other new-martyrs of the Turkish period in the eighteenth-century collections.
Feast and commemoration
July 5 (church date; Old Calendar civil July 18), on which the Greek calendars name him after Athanasius of Athos and Lampadus of Irenopolis as "Ἅγιος Κυπριανὸς ὁ νέος ὁσιομάρτυς." He is kept chiefly in Greek and Athonite usage, particularly at Koutloumousiou and in his native Evrytania; the Slavonic calendars do not carry him, though the Orthodox Church in America's July 5 list names him (as "Hieromartyr Cyprian of Mount Athos") without a notice.
Hymns
Apolytikion — Tone 4
The divine love of thy Master and thy longing for the martyr's contest set thee aflame, O Cyprian; and going forth into the midst of the ungodly thou didst confess Christ with a boldness at which angels and men marvelled, and didst redden the monastic habit with thy blood. O new venerable-martyr, intercede that our souls may be saved.
Iconography
Cyprian is painted in the type of the new venerable-martyrs of the Turkish period: a monk in the black habit and analavos, of middle age, with a dark beard, holding the martyr's cross in his right hand and often a palm or a scroll in his left, and in Athonite panels carrying his own severed head or standing beside the executioner's sword. He may be shown with the Great Lavra and the peak of Athos behind him, or with the Phanar quarter of Constantinople where he suffered. No pre-1900 image of him has been identified for this repository; the Athonite engravings of the new-martyrs, which are the likeliest source, have not yielded a verified portrait of him.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with the ancient Cyprian of Antioch, the former magician commemorated with Justina on October 2. The epithet "the New" (ὁ Νέος) exists precisely to keep the two apart, and the Greek calendars never print this saint's name without it.
- The year. The Greek synaxaristic tradition is consistent in giving 1679; some printed lists give 1678, the difference reflecting the reckoning of the year rather than a disagreement about the event.