Kyrillos Loukaris

Kyrillos Loukaris

Kyrillos Loukaris ( Greek Κύριλλος Λούκαρις (Λούκαρης) , Latin Cyrillus Lucaris ; * 1572 in Candia , Crete ; † June 27, 1638 on the Bosporus , Ottoman Empire ) was an Orthodox clergyman and scholar. He was the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria (1602-1620) and Ecumenical Patriarch in Constantinople (1621-1638 with interruptions). In some of his writings he represented Protestant or suspected views.

Life

Education and monastery years

Loukaris was from Crete. He grew up under the influence of his uncle Meletios Pegas , who later became the Patriarch of Alexandria. He studied in Padua and Venice . Then he became head of an Orthodox monastery in Crete.

Poland-Lithuania

In 1592 Meletios sent him to Russia and Poland-Lithuania for the first time to influence the planned union of the Ruthenian Orthodox Church with the Roman Catholic Church. Kyrill also taught the Greek language at the Ostrog Academy , where he was rector.

In 1596 he took part as exarch of the Patriarch in the meetings of the Orthodox clergy in Poland-Lithuania, which rejected the union of Brest with Rome. In 1597 Patriarch Meletios appointed him provisional successor to the Metropolitan of Kiev, who had accepted the union with the Roman Pope. Kyrill could not exercise this office and had to leave Poland-Lithuania.

He went to Wittenberg and Geneva as the most important centers of Protestantism and studied there. In 1600 he returned to Poland-Lithuania at the request of the Polish king to mediate between the Greek Catholic and Orthodox Churches, albeit without success.

Patriarch of Alexandria

In 1602 he became Patriarch of Alexandria and served as such until he was promoted to Ecumenical Patriarch in 1620.

Patriarch of Constantinople

Loukaris won and lost the chair of the Constantinople Patriarch several times, depending on the strength of the opposition within the church and the external Christian powers of opposing denominations:

• Kyrillos Lukaris ( Patriarchate Administrator )
• Cyrilus I Lucaris (for the second time) 1620 - 1623
• Gregory II 1623
• Anthimus II. 1623
• Cyrilus I Lucaris (for the third time) 1623 - 1630,
• Cyrilus I Lucaris (for the fourth time) 1630 - 1633
• Kyrillos II Kontares 1633
• Cyrilus I Lucaris (for the fifth time) 1633 - 1634
• Athanasios III. Patelaros 1634
• Cyrilus I Lucaris (for the sixth time) 1634 - 1635
• Kyrillos II Kontares (for the second time) 1635 - 1636
• Neophytus III. 1636-1637
• Cyrilus I Lucaris (for the seventh time) 1637 - 1638
• Kyrillos II Kontares (for the third time) 1638 - 1639

Between 1622 and 1627 Loukaris toured northern and western Europe, including Bremen , Hamburg and Oxford . He sought the support of the Protestants. His opponent Kyrillos Kontares, who came from the Jesuit College Galata, secured the support of the Catholic Church, which was anxious to gain a foothold in Constantinople.

Accused of espionage for Russia, Sultan Murad IV had Loukaris killed by Janissaries on a ship in the Bosporus in 1638 . His repeated successor, Kyrillos II Kontares, had him declared a heretic on September 24, 1638 by an Orthodox synod in Constantinople, in order to push back his supporters and influence.

Fonts

In 1625 he wrote the "Confession of the Orthodox Church" for the theological faculty of the University of Helmstedt , which was printed in 1661.

A friendship connected him with the neo-Aristotelian philosopher Theophilos Corydalleus , Johannes Coccejus was spiritually close to him , but there is no written record of a friendship with him.

• Confessio Fidei Orthodoxae Geneva 1629. In this work he criticized the Orthodox Church and above all its worship of images and the intercession services for the dead.
• Cyrille Lucar: Sermons 1598-1602. Published by Keetje Rozemond in Leyden. Reprint: EJ Brill, Leiden 1974, ISBN 90-04-03976-7 .

Adoration

On October 6, 2009 he was included in the Canon of Saints by the Synod in Alexandria.

literature

• Gunnar Hering : The Ecumenical Patriarchate and European Politics 1620-1638. Wiesbaden 1968.
• Gunnar Hering: Kyrillos I. Lukaris . In: Biographical Lexicon on the History of Southeast Europe. Volume 2. Munich 1976, p. 541 f.

Web links

Commons : Cyril Lucaris  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Kyrillos Lukaris (German)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ A. Melloni (ed.]: The Great Councils of the Orthodox Churches. Decisions and Synodika (Concilorum oecumenicorum generaliumque decrata 4,1). Brepols 2016, 229-251.
2. ↑ Biography in: WJ van Asselt: The federal theology of Johannes Cocceius (1603-1669) , p. 181

predecessor	Office	successor
Timothy II	Patriarch of Constantinople 1620-1623, 1623-1630, 1630-1633, 1633-1634, 1634-1635, 1637-1638	Parthenios I.
Meletios I.	Patriarch of Alexandria 1601–1620	Gerasimos I.