Cyriacus (3)

Cyriacus the name of a number of saints, martyrs, and others. SEE CHRYSE; SEE CYRICUS.

1. A martyr who, with his brother Theodulus; was put to death in the time of Hadrian. They are commemorated May 2.

2. A deacon of Rome. He is said to have suffered martyrdom there early in the 4th century, under Maximin. His commemoration is given variously March 16, August 8, and July 15; the first, probably, being the festival of his martyrdom, the second, of the removal of his bones by pope Marcellus, the last, of a church dedicated to his name.

3. A disciple of Marcellus of Ancyra.

4. A saint, commemorated in the menology of Basil as a man of Jerusalem, martyred with his mother by Julian the Apostate, his right hand being first cut off because his writings had made so many converts.

5. Bishop of Adana, in Cilicia. He was present at the Council of Constantinople in 381, and, by the permission of Diodorus of Tarsus, his metropolitan, remained behind on its separation to instruct Nectarius, who had been unexpectedly raised from the rank of a layman to the archiepiscopal see of Constantinople. He was one of the three bishops commissioned by the council to convey their synodal letter to Damasus and the other bishops of the West.

6. SEE CYRICUS 1.

7. A presbyter of Antioch, addressed along with Castus and Valerius and Diophantes by Chrysostom (Ep. 22, 62, 66, 107, 130, 222), and alone by his exiled fellow-presbyter Constantius in a letter wrongly ascribed to Chrysostom (Ep. 241).

8. A deacon who, together with Paul, accompanied the deputation of bishops who conveyed to Rome Chrysostom's letter to Innocent, in 404 (Pallad. page 11). He was unable to join his namesake, bishop Cyriacus, and his companions, in Rome in 405, his health not permitting him to take a long voyage (Ep. 148).

9. A bishop, apparently resident at Constantinople. He was a friend and correspondent of Chrysostom. From a letter to Olympias (Ep. ad Olymp. 12) it is evident that he had sufficient influence to change the place of Chrysostom's exile. Two letters of Chrysostom to Cyriacus are extant.

10. A bishop of Synnada, in Phrygia, friend and fellow-sufferer of Chrysostom, who, together with Eulysius, bishop of Apamea, embarked with him when expelled from Constantinople, in June 404, and accompanied him on the first stages of his journey. The whole party was arrested at Nicaea on suspicion of complicity in the conflagration at Constantinople, and thrown into chains. After a few days, Cyriacus and Eulysius were separated from Chrysostom and brought back and imprisoned at Chalcedon (Pallad. page 38; Sozom. 8:22). While they were in prison Chrysostom wrote them a consolatory and encouraging letter (Chrysost. Ep. 147). Being acquitted of the charge, Cyriacus was sent back to Constantinople, but was driven from the city by the law enforcing communion with Arsacius, Theophilus, and Porphyry. He fled to Rome, where he arrived towards the beginning of 405. He laid the statement of his own and Chrysostom's troubles before Innocent, his oral account being confirmed by the letters brought a few days afterwards by Eulysius (Pallad. page 11). He accompanied the unfortunate western deputation to Constantinople in 406, and shared in the ill-treatment to which they were subjected (Chrysost. Ep. 156; Pallad. page 13). He and his eastern colleagues were seized and put on board a vessel, and it was reported that. they had been drowned. But they were purposely reserved by their enemies for insult and ill-usage. They were conveyed to places of exile in the most remote and desolate parts of the empire. Cyriacus was imprisoned in the Persian fortress of Palmyra, eighty miles beyond Emesa.

11. Bishop (Quiragos or Shahag) of Daik, in Persarmenia, about A.D. 390-411 (Faustus Byzantinus, 6:11, in Langlois, Coll. Hist. Arm. 1:309).

12. A sub-deacon of the Church of Macedonia, A.D. 414.

13. A bishop in Thessaly in the time of pope Boniface I. In a letter to Rufus, bishop of Thessalonica, Boniface tells him that he has separated from his communion Cyriacus, among other bishops, unless they obtain pardon through Rufus.

14. Bishop of Lodi (A.D. 451,452). Bearer of the synodal letter of the Council of Milan in A.D. 451 to pope Leo the Great.

15. One of the two deacons appointed to summon the bishops to the sessions of the Council of Chalcedon.

16. Bishop of Tyana. He supported the demand of Julian and Severus for the condemnation of the Council of Chalcedon, and the Tome of Leo, but in 518 turned completely round and signed the "relatio" to John, the patriarch of Constantinople, drawn up at the synod that met in that city, which asked for the restoration of the names of Leo of Rome, and Euphemius and Macedonius of Constantinople to the diptychs, and the condemnation of Severus and the other impugners of the decrees of Chalcedon. In the Latin acts he appears as "Dominicus" (Labbe, Concil. 4:1586; 5:167; Le Quien, 1:400).

17. Abbot of St. Andrew's at Rome, employed by Gregory the Great about A.D. 593 in the conversion of the Barbaricini in Sardinia.

18. Martyr at Tomi, commemorated June 20.

19. The anchorite (A.D. 448-557), commemorated September 29.