Sophronius of Cyprus
Our Venerable Father Sophronius, Bishop of Cyprus
Venerable · Bishop · d. 6th century
Commemorated 8 December — Repose; commemorated with Patapius of Thebes
Sophronius (6th century, by the usual reckoning) was a bishop of the Church of Cyprus, honoured by the tradition as an ascetic hierarch — learned, austere in his own life, and open-handed toward the poor and the oppressed. The Greek synaxaria remember him for having "quenched every fleshly passion" and for a pastorate marked by mercy; he reposed in peace. He is commemorated on December 8, on the same day as Patapius of Thebes, chiefly in the Greek tradition.
Sophronius is one of the many bishops of the early Church whom the synaxaria preserve in a single brief notice. The tradition makes him a Cypriot, adorned from youth with learning in both worldly and sacred wisdom, who was raised to the episcopate of Cyprus and there governed his flock with a hierarch's authority tempered by an ascetic's self-denial. He is praised especially as a lover of the poor and a defender of those wronged, and the calendars style him hosios — venerable — as one who lived the monastic virtues in the world and on the episcopal throne. The synaxarion verse for his day sums up his life in the ascetic key: having extinguished every passion of the flesh, he "flew away" at last even from his body of clay. No writings and no detailed acts survive, and no year of his repose is transmitted; he is commonly placed in the sixth century. He died in peace and is numbered among the holy bishops of Cyprus.
Feast and commemoration
December 8 (church date; Old Calendar civil December 21), within the Nativity Fast and the forefeast of the Conception of the Theotokos by Anna. Sophronius is commemorated in the synaxarion notice of the day, together with Patapius of Thebes and the apostolic company of the Seventy, the day's sung service belonging to Patapius and the forefeast. His memory is kept chiefly in the Greek Menaion and the Greek-tradition calendars; the Slavic books and the OCA do not carry him on this day.
Iconography
The stored image is the miniature of the Menologion of Basil II (Constantinople, 985): the archbishop stands alone between the buildings of his see, an aged hierarch in phelonion and omophorion with the jewelled Gospel-book held before him — the manuscript's portrait for his December commemoration.
Disputed questions
- Date. No year is given in the sources. The sixth-century placement is the usual one in the Greek reference literature, but it is a reasonable estimate rather than a datum; the century is recorded here provisionally and flagged for verification.
- Not to be confused with the other hierarchs named Sophronius: Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, the seventh-century hymnographer and opponent of Monotheletism (†638, March 11), and Sophronius, Bishop of Vratsa, the father of the Bulgarian Revival (†1813, also March 11). This Sophronius is the sixth-century bishop of Cyprus, kept December 8.