Oxford history of the christian church

(iii) Cyprus.

Cyprus, another major Byzantine island which passed under Latin control, was rather differently situated. It had been captured from its Byzantine ruler by Richard I of England in 1191 at the time of the Third Crusade and in 1192 was acquired by the Poitevin Guy de Lusignan, the dispossessed king of Jerusalem (recently taken by Saladin). It remained in Lusignan hands for about three hundred years, closely linked with what was left of the kingdom of Jerusalem and much influenced by the Latin feudal customs established there. Finally through default of male heirs it came under Venetian control at the end of the fifteenth century until its conquest by the Ottomans in 1571. Cyprus had a predominantly Greek population but also, particularly as the Moslems advanced into the crusader states, it housed a number of other refugee communities, Syrians, Maronites, Jacobites, Armenians, certainly numerous enough to set up their own particular churches and to be specifically mentioned in various papal bulls directed towards the island. The Greek Orthodox Church in Cyprus differed from that in other parts of the Byzantine Empire in that it was autocephalous under an archbishop selected by the Emperor from the customary three names submitted to him, thus bypassing the Patriarch of Constantinople. ³⁴

Under western rule in 1196 a Latin hierarchy was set up under an archbishop at Nicosia and three suffragans. In contrast to Crete, the Greek hierarchy was also retained consisting of the archbishop at Famagusta and about fourteen sees scattered throughout the island. The secular administration, as in the kingdom of Jerusalem, was an adaptation on Latin feudal lines. The Lusignans left to themselves would probably have been more tolerant of the Greek Church than the papacy, and certainly the Cypriote Latin hierarchy, would permit. They and their barons did indeed resent the encroachments of the Latin clergy, particularly in matters of finance. Baronial payment of tithes to the Latin Church was a point in question which frequently intruded into conventions discussing ecclesiastical problems. The Latin hierarchy had in any case taken over the Greek church property and was constantly improving its revenue from donations. ³⁵

The secular authority, then the Queen Mother Alice of Champagne, who was regent from 1218-25, would have left the Greek hierarchy as it was whether or not they took the oath of obedience to the Latin bishops, and by implication the papacy. But this was not in line with papal policy on the relations between the native, mostly Greek, population and the Latin conquerors. It was rejected in 1220 at a meeting in Limassol between the lay powers and the four Latin bishops. Obedience to Rome was insisted on and the numbers and movements of Greek priests and monks were restricted. Any plea for more flexibility was fiercely rejected by Pope Honorius in January 1222. On the contrary he went much further, pointing out that the anomaly of having two bishops in one see was uncanonical. He demanded obedience to the Latin hierarchy from Greek clergy and abbots. Bishops not conforming were to be expelled. Further discussion at Famagusta followed later in the year. This produced no alleviation for the Greeks. It defined the situation more closely, insisting on subordination to the Latin ordinary and restricting the Greek sees to four to correspond to the Latin hierarchy. Greek bishops taking the oath would in practice simply be acting under the Latin bishop of the diocese. The actual sees of the Greek bishops were removed to rural areas outside the main towns. ³⁶

In this way it was hoped to provide for the spiritual needs of the Greek majority while preserving Latin supremacy. But the conditions posed problems for the Cypriot bishops. The obedience to the Latin bishops required from all clerics, and particularly the oath of fealty which Greek bishops had to make to the Latin ordinary, placing their hands within his according to feudal usage, were found difficult to accept. The Greek archbishop Neophytus rejected these conditions and went into exile for a time. In such a situation the Cypriots in 1223 appealed for advice from the Byzantine Patriarch of Constantinople then resident in Nicaea. Germanus II was at first inclined to permit 'economy' and acceptance as long as Orthodox rites and usages were preserved. But rioting and protesting antiLatin extremists broke into the room where the Patriarch and his synod were debating and this decision was reversed, which was certainly more in keeping with Orthodox policy. Germanus then ruled that it was forbidden to take the feudal oath but it was permissible to get the consent of the Latin ordinary before taking office. He also agreed that laity and clerics should have the right of appeal from the Greek bishop to the court of the Latin metropolitan. ³⁷

There followed a confused period for the Greek Cypriots. During his exile Archbishop Neophytus was confirmed in his office by the Byzantine Emperor according to normal custom. He returned and evidently took the required oath followed by others. A strong protest was made against this by Patriarch Germanus in a letter of 1229 addressed to all the Orthodox in Cyprus both Greeks and Syrians. He commended all who had not submitted to Latin demands and exhorted them rather to worship at home. He made a bitter attack on the Latin Church and this only exacerbated the division within the Cypriot Orthodox community. Further Germanus was interfering in the affairs of an autocephalous Church, as Archbishop Neophytus pointed out when he appealed to the Byzantine Emperor to restrain the Patriarch.

An attempt to solve the unhappy state of the Orthodox in Cyprus was made during the pontificate of Innocent IV who had a more sympathetic attitude. First in 1246 he sent a Franciscan, Brother Lawrence, as legate to inquire into the problems in the East including Cyprus and to protect the Greeks who might have been oppressed by the Latins, which in itself was an admission that Latin policy in Cyprus was open to criticism. Then in 1248 the cardinalbishop of Tusculum, Eudes, went to Cyprus and had discussions there with the Greek hierarchy. The Greeks sent their suggestions directly to the Pope. The tenor of their requests was a return to the pre-Latin diocesan organization of fourteen sees and the recognition of their own canon law in return for the promise of obedience which was to be made directly to the Pope or his legate, thus eliminating relations with the disliked Latin hierarchy. The Latin archbishop of Nicosia, Hugh of Fagiano, countered this move by tightening the already restrictive requirements designed to promote the Roman rite and usages. Innocent IV, through his legate Eudes, responded by allowing the Greek bishops to elect their own archbishop, Germanus, to fill the vacant see (1251). Thus Germanus was granted unusual privileges which were to cease at his death. Innocent also ruled that as far as possible the Greeks should retain their own rite and customs.

But Innocent IV died in 1254 and his unusually sympathetic approach ceased. His successor Alexander IV was either not tough enough, or not willing, to maintain the measure of independence from the detested Latin hierarchy which the Greek Cypriots so greatly desired. The Latin Archbishop Hugh deeply resented the concession and particularly the presence of a specially favoured Greek archbishop. In the event, a running legal controversy over Germanus ensued. The situation was clarified by Alexander IV's bull which was amplified in Cyprus by synodal rulings embodied in the Constitutio Cypria (1260). This was a return to four Greek dioceses but no Greek archbishop (after Germanus' death). There were certain minor concessions to the Greeks in matters of jurisdiction concerning their own people but in general subordination to the Latin hierarchy was enforced.

This unhappy situation went on for about three hundred years (1260-1571). The cartulary of the Latin cathedral of Santa Sophia in Nicosia bears witness to continuing problems which split the two Churches. ³⁸ In ecclesiastical eyes the situation was aggravated by the crown and barons who were often at loggerheads with their own Latin hierarchy partly because of disputes over the payment of tithes and partly because of the government's reluctance to stir up resistance from the Greek majority. Thus in 1264 Urban IV had to rebuke the Bailli for refusing to assist the archbishop of Nicosia in enforcing orthodox (Latin) practices on the Greeks in the difficulties which had arisen since Alexander IV's bull, ³⁹ and in fact there were ecclesiastical complaints of positive opposition to the Latin archbishop from the secular authorities. ⁴⁰ Then there were increasing difficulties in relations between the Greek and Latin hierarchies due to some extent to declining standards and absenteeism in the Latin Church. In 1472 Sixtus IV had to remind the four Greek bishops that they could not exercise jurisdiction outside the towns assigned to them. ⁴¹ During the fifteenth and following centuries there was evidence that there was more fraternization between Greek and Latin. In the early years of the fifteenth century an unsuccessful attempt to unite the Orthodox Church of Constantinople with the Greek Cypriots broke down on the grounds that the Cypriots were schismatics who went on occasion to Latin churches. On the other hand in 1438 the Latins in Cyprus were described by Aeneas Sylvius as being more Greek-minded than Roman. ⁴² Despite papal protests Latin women went to Greek services. ⁴³ Greek bishops officiated in Latin dioceses. The decrees of the council of Florence were not put into practice. Irregularities and disorder seemed prevalent.

But behind the official testimony of papal bulls or cathedral records, all too often witnessing discord and failure, there is evidence of another kind telling of life on a different and more intimate level — that of the Latin families settled in the plains and mountains and the villages in the rural parishes of the island. These had their chapels and churches some of which still survive and are a living witness to the coming together of Greek and Latin Cypriots. Fragments of evidence point to shared churches, either doublenaved or with a side chapel built on. The Panagia Angeloktistos at Kiti had a small Gothic chapel (late thirteenth or early fourteenth century) added for the Gibelet family, the French lords of Kiti with their Latin rite. ⁴⁴ Similarly the church of Pelendri had a nave added for Latin use, as also the church of St John Lampadistis in Kalopanagiotis with its fifteenth-century frescoes of a Latin family whose two sons had Latin tonsures but wore the vestments of an Orthodox priest. The portraits of donors and families in the wealth of frescoes give a living presentation of late medieval life in Cyprus, with the mixed marriages and the changing fashions in dress and the mingling of the French and Greek languages. ⁴⁵ Local co-operation and integration of this kind in Cyprus seems to have increased during the last centuries of the Latin regime. The failure of the council of Florence, the fall of Constantinople in 1453, the antiLatin anathemas of the Orthodox synod in Constantinople in 1483, all left untouched the amicable local relations witnessed by the village churches and noticed by travellers, such as the disapproving Felix Faber who when in Cyprus in the 1480s met a monk who 'on Sundays first said mass in the Latin church and consecrated the Host as do the westerners in unleavened bread. Then he went over to the Greek church and consecrated as the easterners do in leavened bread.' ⁴⁶ The way was opening towards the mutual toleration which for a time was found in the former Byzantine lands in the Mediterranean ⁴⁷ though that was not the view which was taken by Felix Faber and his contemporaries.

Thus in the conquered lands of the old Byzantine Empire the westerners imposed papal control and a Latin hierarchy. But though at local level a modus vivendi was to some extent achieved, the native Greeks were not won over to the Roman Catholic Church. When the westerners were ousted by the advancing Ottomans the Greeks threw off any forced recognition of papal primacy and under the rule of Muslim masters the Orthodox Church reverted to its normal life.