Sabinus of Cyprus
Our Father among the Saints Sabinus, Archbishop of Cyprus, disciple of Epiphanius
Venerable · Bishop · d. mid-5th century, in Cyprus
Commemorated 12 May — Commemorated with his teacher Epiphanius of Cyprus
Sabinus was the disciple, biographer and successor of Epiphanius of Cyprus. Tonsured by Epiphanius and his companion in the ascetic life for five years in the wilderness, he wrote down the life and deeds of his teacher; when Epiphanius was set over the Church of Cyprus he ordained Sabinus presbyter, and at Epiphanius's death in 403 Sabinus was raised to the see of Constantia as Archbishop of Cyprus. As hierarch he defended his church against the heretics in the years when Cyprus was contending both for the Nicene faith and for its own autocephaly, and he reposed about the middle of the fifth century. He is commemorated on May 12, the day of his master, with whom the synaxaria always name him.
Disciple of Epiphanius
The synaxarion account, which is our only source, makes Sabinus a native of the East — it says "of the Phoenician city of Lycia," a confused phrase that has been read as Phoenicia and as Lycia in Asia Minor, and which cannot be resolved. Drawn by the fame of the great ascetic Epiphanius, he came to him, received the monastic tonsure at his hands, and shared his life in the wilderness for five years.
Like the other close disciples — John, the converted robber, and Polybius, afterwards bishop of Rinocorura — Sabinus was one of those who kept the record of Epiphanius's deeds and words. The Greek Life of Epiphanius, which stands behind all the later synaxaria of May 12, was compiled from these disciples' notes; Sabinus's share in it is the reason his name has come down at all.
Presbyter and Archbishop of Constantia
When Epiphanius was made Bishop of Constantia (Salamis) and metropolitan of Cyprus about 367, Sabinus followed him to the island and was ordained presbyter by him. He served under him for the whole of that long episcopate — some thirty-six years — and at Epiphanius's death at sea in 403 he was chosen to succeed him as Archbishop of Cyprus.
The office he inherited was a contested one. Cyprus was then asserting the independence of its church against the claims of the patriarchate of Antioch — a controversy that the Council of Ephesus would settle in the island's favour in 431 and the Emperor Zeno confirm at the end of the century — and was at the same time troubled by the heresies of the age. The synaxarion says simply that Sabinus governed his church well and defended it from the heretics, which in the first half of the fifth century means the Arians still surviving in the East, the Apollinarians whom his master had fought, and in his later years the Nestorian and Monophysite controversies. He reposed about the middle of the fifth century.
Feast and commemoration
May 12 (church date; New Calendar civil May 12, Old Calendar civil May 25), kept with his teacher Epiphanius of Cyprus and with the other May 12 commemorations. He has no proper service; the synaxarion names him in the notices appended to the day, and the Church of Cyprus honours him among its archbishops and among the saints of the island.
Hymns
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a hierarch)
O God of our Fathers, who deal with us ever according to Your gentleness: take not Your mercy from us, but by the prayers of Your hierarch Sabinus, guide our lives in peace.
Iconography
Sabinus is painted as a hierarch of middle or advanced age, in phelonion and omophorion, blessing and holding the Gospel, in the general type of the bishop-saints; nothing individual is transmitted about his appearance. Where he is shown at all it is beside Epiphanius, in Cypriot compositions of the bishops of the island, or among the ranks of hierarchs in a sanctuary programme. No pre-1900 icon of him has been located for this collection.
Disputed questions
- Origin. "Of the Phoenician city of Lycia" in the transmitted notice is corrupt; neither Phoenicia nor Lycia can be established.
- Dates. No year is given for his repose beyond "the middle of the fifth century"; the Cypriot episcopal lists for the period after Epiphanius are incomplete, and Sabinus cannot be securely fitted into them. He is not the Sabinus who subscribed at Ephesus in 431, though the identification has occasionally been proposed.
- Not to be confused with Sabinus of Egypt, the martyr of Hermopolis (March 16), nor with Sabinus of Catania — different persons of different centuries and different types.