medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Cyrus and John (d. early 4th cent.?) are saints first venerated either at Alexandria or at relatively nearby Menouthis. The circumstances surrounding the origin of their cult at the latter site have long been controversial. They were viewed there as healers, as the locally venerated Isis had also been. In the sixth and seventh centuries their shrine at Menouthis, which operated largely by incubation, was a major pilgrimage destination. In the earlier seventh century St. Sophronius of Jerusalem wrote both an encomium of Cyrus and John (BHG 476) and an account of their miracles (BHG 479). The encomium presents Cyrus as a monk who practiced healing and John as a former military officer who became his companion; both were martyred, Sophronius says, at Canopus. These saints also have a pre-metaphrastic Bios and Martyrion (BHG 469) as well as a tenth-century one by St. Symeon Metaphrastes (BHG 471). Cyrus is always thought of as having been from Alexandria; one tradition makes John a Syrian from Edessa. Their suffering is said to have occurred under Diocletian. Accorded the customary honorific "Abba", Cyrus appears in the Apophthegmata Patrum as the author of a saying on mental resistance to lust. The Egyptian coastal town of Abu Qir (Aboukir) near the former Canopic mouth of the Nile takes its name from Abba Cyrus.
In the 870s the papal secretary Anastasius Bibliothecarius translated Sophronius' encomium of Cyrus and John into Latin (BHL 2077; conventionally called a Passio); together with Bonifatius Consiliarius he also produced a Latin translation of their Miracula (BHL 2080). By this time relics said to be those of Cyrus and John had been translated to Rome, where they were deposited in a little church on the Via Portuensis that came to be known as that of Abba Cyrus and that is now Santa Passera. There being no Saint Passera, the present name is thought to be Abba Cyrus transmogrified. Other putative relics of these saints are in their modern church in Abu Qir (these are said to have long been in the church of St. Barbara in Alexandria), in the monastery of St. John on Patmos, and in several monasteries on Mt. Athos. In the later seventeenth century St. Francesco de Girolamo brought some of the Roman relics of Cyrus to Naples. From there, at various times, relics of him went to Portici (NA) in Campania, where Cyrus is the patron saint, and to Marineo (PA) in northwestern Sicily, where he is also the patron saint and whose principal church houses a skull said to be his:
http://santiebeati.it/immagini/Original/90327/90327B.JPG
Yet other relics went to Grottaglie (TA) in southern Apulia and to Foggia (FG) in northern Apulia. The latter has what is said to be Cyrus' lower jaw.
In the Latin calendar accompanying the Sinai psalter ms. Sin. lat. 5 (early ninth-century but thought to reflect local practice from before the seventh-century Arab conquest) the feast of Cyrus and John falls on 23. July. In the earlier ninth-century Marble Calendar of Naples and in the calendar in the ninth-century tropologion from Sinai ms. Sin. gr. NE/ΜΓ 56-5 their feast falls on 31. January. That is also their feastday in the Metaphrastic Menologion and in the Synaxary of Constantinople, both of which originated in the tenth century, as well as in the Roman Martyrology (a creation of the later sixteenth century) and in the modern calendars of Orthodox and other Byzantine-rite churches. The Synaxary of Constantinople and its modern descendants also have a translation feast on 28. July commemorating the removal of the relics of Cyrus and John in 412 from Canopus to the predecessor of today's Abu Qir.
Some period-pertinent images of Sts. Cyrus and John:
a) Cyrus as depicted in an eighth-century fresco (ca. 757-767) in the atrium Rome's chiesa di Santa Maria Antiqua:
http://tinyurl.com/2wntg5
b) The martyrdom of Cyrus (at center, standing), John (at right, standing), and their four companions (Sts. Athanasia, Theodota, Theoctista, and Eudoxia; all already decapitated) as depicted in the late tenth- or very early eleventh-century so-called Menologion of Basil II (Città del Vaticano, BAV, cod. Vat. gr. 1613, p. 360):
http://tinyurl.com/m8r93kt
c) Cyrus (allegedly; John??) as depicted in an eleventh-century fresco in the cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv / Kiev:
http://www.icon-art.info/masterpiece.php?lng=en&mst_id=1072
d) Cyrus and John as depicted in the earlier eleventh-century mosaics (restored between 1953 and 1962) in the narthex of the church of the Theotokos in the monastery of Hosios Loukas near Distomo in Phokis:
Cyrus:
http://tinyurl.com/m34pu3v
http://tinyurl.com/k78aawv
John:
http://tinyurl.com/kxe9g3o
http://tinyurl.com/lcz8hhp
e) Cyrus (at left) and John (at right) as depicted with St. Hermolaus of Nicomedia (in the roundel; another healing saint) in the earlier twelfth-century mosaics (ca. 1143) of the basilica di Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (a.k.a. chiesa della Martorana) in Palermo:
http://tinyurl.com/6v5zyhu
f) Cyrus (at center left) and John (probably; at center right, dressed as a military officer) as depicted in the earlier twelfth-century frescoes (1140s) of the Transfiguration cathedral of the Mirozh monastery in Pskov (for a slightly better view, click on the image):
http://tinyurl.com/qzmehj2
g) Cyrus and John as depicted in the mid- to slightly later twelfth-century mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo:
Cyrus (on the soffit at left):
http://www.fotografieitalia.it/foto/2045/2045-11-02-30-7810.jpg
John (grayscale):
http://www.fotografia.iccd.beniculturali.it/images/watermark/11/106826.jpg
h) Cyrus and John as depicted in the later twelfth-century frescoes (1164) of the church of St. Panteleimon (Pantaleon) at Gorno Nerezi (Skopje municipality) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia:
Cyrus:
http://tinyurl.com/z8ndt6k
John:
http://tinyurl.com/gpjn9n2
i) Cyrus and John as depicted in the late twelfth-century mosaics of the basilica cattedrale di Santa Maria Nuova in Monreale (grayscale views):
Cyrus:
http://tinyurl.com/qgk78ct
Detail view (Cyrus):
http://tinyurl.com/odbjmbz
John:
http://tinyurl.com/ovy58vz
Detail view (John):
http://tinyurl.com/q3m56g8
j) Cyrus and John flanking Christ as depicted in a thirteenth-century fresco in the apse of the upper church of Rome's chiesa di Santa Passera:
http://tinyurl.com/2rbmzr
Illustrated, Italian-language accounts of Santa Passera:
http://tinyurl.com/8ysgqxt
http://tinyurl.com/2lt4or
k) Cyrus (at right; at left, Sampson the Hospitable, another healing saint) as depicted in the earlier thirteenth-century frescoes (1230s) in the narthex of the church of the Holy Ascension in the Mileševa monastery near Prijepolje (Zlatibor dist.) in Serbia:
http://tinyurl.com/2d48d5n
Detail view (Cyrus):
http://tinyurl.com/262g558
l) Cyrus and John as depicted in the later thirteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1282 and 1285) in the King Dragutin chapel in the church of St. George at the monastery of the Tracts / Pillars of St. George (Đurđevi Stupovi) near Novi Pazar (Raška dist.) in Serbia:
Cyrus (image rather degraded):
http://tinyurl.com/3ztwubo
John:
http://tinyurl.com/3o6vz5s
m) Cyrus and John as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. ca. 1312 and 1321/1322) in the monastery church of the Theotokos at Gračanica in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija or the Republic of Kosovo:
Cyrus:
http://tinyurl.com/2efcluc
John:
http://tinyurl.com/2g3hr9w
n) Scenes of Cyrus and John as depicted in an earlier fourteenth-century pictorial menologion from Thessaloniki (betw. 1322 and 1340; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Gr. th. f. 1):
1) Martyrdom (fol. 27v; upper right-hand panel, upper register at right; the lower register and, it is has been thought, the three figures at upper left, all depict the martyrdom of their companions; it's perhaps more likely that that the figures at upper left depict the martyrdom of Cyrus and John after they had observed [upper right] that of St. Athanasia and her daughters):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/27ar.jpg
2) Translation from Canopus (fol. 45r; lower right-hand panel):
http://image.ox.ac.uk/images/bodleian/msgrthf1/45r.jpg
o) Cyrus and John as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) in the nave of the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending upon one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/29ohnhs
Detail view:
http://tinyurl.com/283wk4j
p) The martyrdom of Cyrus and John (at right; at left, St. Sampson the Hospitable) as depicted in the earlier fourteenth-century frescoes (betw. 1335 and 1350) of the narthex in the church of the Holy Ascension at the Visoki Dečani monastery near Peć in, depending on one's view of the matter, either the Republic of Kosovo or Serbia's province of Kosovo and Metohija:
http://tinyurl.com/yfzgkf5
q) Cyrus and John as depicted in the earlier sixteenth-century frescoes (1546/47) by George / Tzortzis the Cretan in the Dionysiou monastery on Mt. Athos:
Cyrus:
http://tinyurl.com/lysc879
John:
http://tinyurl.com/k7fo55a
Best,
John Dillon
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