Bishop Cyril

The designation “Bishop Cyril” does not identify a single historical person. Cyril (from Greek Kyrillos) has been a common episcopal name in the Greek, Coptic, Syriac, Slavic, and Latin churches from late antiquity to the present. Without a see, century, feast, or other unique marker, no birth year, death year, birthplace, burial, patronage, or canonization can be verified for one individual, and it would be unsound to attach the biography of any one Cyril to this label.

Among the best-attested bishops of this name, Cyril of Jerusalem served as bishop of Jerusalem in the fourth century and is remembered for catechetical lectures associated with that church; he is distinct from Cyril of Alexandria, patriarch of Alexandria in the fifth century, a central figure in the Christological controversies surrounding Nestorius and the Council of Ephesus (431). Other historical bishops and patriarchs named Cyril include later Coptic popes of Alexandria, Orthodox patriarchs of Jerusalem and Constantinople, and numerous diocesan bishops in Eastern and Western calendars. Saints Cyril and Methodius, the ninth-century missionaries to the Slavs, are a further, separate pair: Constantine took the name Cyril in monastic life and is not the same figure as the Jerusalem or Alexandrian bishops.

Because these men differ in office, date, and place, fields that must be unique—year of birth, year of death, cities of birth and death, burial, religious order, marital status, children, whether the subject was pope or patriarch, feast day, patronages, and the names of those who beatified or canonized him—cannot be filled from a reliable source for an unspecified “Bishop Cyril.” Even the two most famous, Jerusalem and Alexandria, have disputed or only approximate natal years in the scholarly literature, and office-taking dates must not be treated as birth years.

If a particular Bishop Cyril is intended (for example Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyril of Alexandria, a named Coptic pope, or a modern diocesan bishop), that see, century, or independent identifier is required before any of the missing biographical facts can be stated with historical confidence. Until then, only the generic facts that the name is masculine and that the title denotes a Christian bishop are secure; all other items in this record are left blank rather than guessed.