The ecclesiastical authorities of Constantinople at that time were preoccupied with the fate of Orthodoxy in Poland. In recent years, the Polish kingdom had spread eastward, and now it held the western Russian lands: most of Ukraine, where the population was exclusively Orthodox; in Galicia and Lithuania, which were officially annexed to Poland in 1569, Orthodox communities existed for a long time. In Poland, in addition, there were many Lutherans and Calvinists. King Stephen Batory, thanks to whom these conquests were accomplished, was a tolerant Catholic; And although he encouraged the Jesuits in their work among the Orthodox population, he granted the Orthodox and Lutheran bishops the same rights that the Catholics enjoyed – to sit in the Polish Senate. Stephen's successor, Sigismund III, elected in 1587, belonged to the Catholic branch of the Swedish Vasa dynasty. His mother, the Lithuanian heiress Catherine Jagiellonia, was a zealous Catholic; and Sigismund himself lost the Swedish throne because of his religious affiliation. Soon Sigismund took measures against both Protestants and Orthodox. He issued a decree that all public offices should be reserved for Catholics; And he had about 20,000 of them. He deprived non-Catholic bishops of their seats in the Senate. He was particularly irritated by the trip of Patriarch Jeremias II through Ukraine on his way back from Moscow in 1588, and he ordered the Jesuits to intensify their propaganda among all Orthodox subjects. They lured into their ranks Michael, Metropolitan of Vilna, and Ignatius, Bishop of Vladimir, with the help of whom the king was able in 1595 to convene a council of Polish Orthodox bishops in Brest-Litovsk to discuss their subordination to Rome, according to the direction set by the Florentine Union. Few bishops attended the council, and only slightly more than half of them voted in favor of the primacy of the pope, provided that the Orthodox retained their worship, communion under both forms for the laity, marriages of the white clergy, and the Julian calendar. When the conditions were presented to Rome, they were accepted by Pope Clement VIII, and on December 23, 1595, the creation of the Polish Uniate Orthodox Church was proclaimed. Then a second council was convened in Brest-Litovsk in 1596, which confirmed this resolution.413

When this news was received in Constantinople, they decided to send their representatives to the council. The Patriarch of Constantinople appointed a certain Nicephorus Kantakouzenos as exarch, or patriarchal representative, and Meletius appointed Cyril Loukaris. Both young priests went to Poland, having with them three letters on dogmatic questions, compiled by Meletius in defense of the faithful.

The Orthodox Poles were horrified by the first council. Their bishops hastened to Brest to express their protest, and with them a number of prominent laymen, at the head of whom was Prince Konstantin Vasilyevich of Ostrog, the governor of Kiev, a man of more than a hundred years of age, who many years before had set up the first Slavonic printing press for the printing of liturgical books.414 The opposition under his leadership was very solid, as it turned out a few years later. when, during the wars of Sigismund with the Turks, the Ukrainian Cossacks, who revered him, refused to fight for the king. But Sigismund stubbornly stood his ground. His representative, Prince Radziwill, refused to admit the bishops from the opposition to the Church of Our Lady, where the council was held and the elegant epistle of the pope was read, accompanied by the Te Deum. The non-aligned bishops were forced to gather in a private house nearby. Only there could Pigas's letters on dogmatic questions be read.415

This was followed by a series of measures against the Orthodox, who refused to join the Uniate Church. Only Uniates, including the Metropolitan of Kiev, were appointed bishops, although Uniate candidates never risked living there. The revenues of the non-aligned sees were confiscated, and the bishops who headed them were deprived of their privileges, although there was no active persecution of the ordinary clergy. Kirill and his friend decided to stay in Poland. He saw that the Orthodox, both priests and laity, were at a disadvantage because of their lack of education. He went to Vilna, where there was an Orthodox school, transformed it and lived there himself for twenty months. Then he moved to Lviv at the request of the Galician Orthodox priest Gabriel Dorotheidis and founded a school there according to the same principles. In the meantime, however, the King's agents watched his actions with suspicion. At the beginning of 1598, Cyril and Nikephoros Kantakouzenos were declared Turkish spies. Nicephorus was arrested by Sigismund's police and immediately executed. Cyril had the opportunity to flee to Ostrog, where the prince gave him refuge until he left the country. By August 1598 he was already in Constantinople; He spent Christmas with his family in Crete.416

During his stay in Vilna, Cyril met many Lutheran theologians; they discussed the possibility of uniting the Churches. The Lutherans proposed several formulations on the basis of which mutual communion could take place, and Cyril and his Orthodox friends promised, not without hesitation, to accept them, on condition that they would be approved by the Patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria. Neither Matthew II of Constantinople nor Meletius were enthusiastic about the proposals, and would not have given the matter a go. But in 1599 Sigismund issued a decree prohibiting foreigners from entering and leaving the country without his permission, and wrote a letter to Meletius urging him to cease his obstinacy and submit to Rome. In response, Meletius composed an epistle, very politely asking permission to send to Poland as many spiritual leaders as the Orthodox might need; he handed the letter to Cyril with an accompanying paper, entrusting it to the king's mercy. At the same time, he handed Cyril a letter addressed to Lutheran theologians, in which he proposed to discuss questions of mutual political interests; theological points were avoided in it. When Cyril arrived in Poland, Sigismund received him coldly, but allowed him to remain in the country. Cyril, however, did not give the letter to the Lutherans, fearing that he would be accused of secret contacts with them.417

On his second visit, Kirill spent a whole year in Poland, mainly in the school he founded in Lviv. 17 years later, in one of his letters, the Jesuit Peter Skarga says that in January 1601 Cyril wrote to the Catholic Bishop of Lviv, Dimitri Sokolovsky, in which he expressed deep respect for the throne of St. Peter, as well as the hope that the Churches would soon unite. This letter, which was used by the Jesuits to undermine his position among the Orthodox, even if it was genuine, served the Jesuits for their purposes. Indeed, it is possible that Cyril was trying to reach some understanding with the Catholic authorities for the benefit of his school, and he may have expressed the absolutely Orthodox view that the unification of the Churches is desirable, and that the bishop of Rome will be honored with the highest honors, if only he renounces his errors. But the supposition that he bought his personal safety by becoming a secret Catholic is quite out of the question, if we bear in mind his very obstinate and direct character.

In the spring of 1601, Cyril received a letter from Meletius Pigas, who had returned to Egypt, and offered him the position of abbot in one of the Egyptian monasteries and in fact promised him to inherit the Patriarchal Throne of Alexandria.419 He therefore left Poland and, after a short stay in Moldavia, where the Patriarchate owned large estates, arrived in Alexandria on September 11. Two days later, Pigas died, and the Synod of Alexandria elected Cyril patriarch. The Greek Catholic Leo Allatius later published a rumor that Cyril had bought the patriarchate with money collected in Moldavia, bribing the bishops who were going to elect a certain Gerasimus Spartaliot. This is hardly so, because Spartaliot was later one of Cyril's most devoted friends.420

Cyril was an active patriarch of Alexandria. He moved the patriarchal see from the decaying seaport to Cairo, which was the administrative center of the province. He reorganized the finances of the patriarchy and reformed the school. He settled the strife in the Church of Cyprus; he also went to Jerusalem for the enthronement of his friend Theophanes.421 But life in Egypt, where he had to associate only with Greek merchants and provincial officials, was too secluded for a man of energy and intellect. He spent too little time among his fellow Greeks. His studies in Padua and contacts with Protestants in Poland led to his interest in new trends in Western religious thought.

This interest was strengthened by a friendship with a Dutchman, Cornelius van Haag, whom he probably first met during van Haag's voyage across the Mediterranean in 1598. From that time on, whenever Cyril was in Constantinople on business, he visited the Dutch embassy. At his request, van Haag ordered several theological books for him from Holland and put him in touch with the theologian Jan Witenbogert, a pupil of Arminius. Kirill was in correspondence with him for many years. His contacts with the Dutch were strengthened as a result of a trip to the Mediterranean in 161 ?? 619 by the Dutch theologian, David le Lude William, with whom he also began a correspondence.422 In letters to Dutch friends, he began to show a growing sympathy for Protestant teaching. In 1613, Cyril wrote to Witenbogert that he believed in only two Sacraments, and that they could not bring grace without faith, although faith without the Sacraments was equally worthless. He added that the Church of Greece retained many erroneous rites, although it had always admitted the possibility of error.423 In a number of letters to de William, he stressed the need to replace Greek excessive variety with "evangelical simplicity" and to be guided only by the authority of the Holy Scriptures. Scriptures and the Holy Scriptures. Spirit. He speaks of his suffering from what he saw in Jerusalem, where the behavior of believers seemed to him to be highly pagan. He is glad that his views are in full agreement with those of de Wilhelm on all theological questions.424 In a letter of 1618 to the Italian Marco Antonio de Dominis, who had left the Catholic archbishopric to become a Protestant, he expresses himself even more frankly. Cyril says that he finds the Reformed teaching more in line with the Holy Scriptures. Scripture than the teaching of the Greek and Latin Churches. He questions the authority of the Church Fathers. "I can no longer tolerate people saying that interpretations of human tradition are of equal value to the Holy Scriptures. Scripture," he writes. He adds that in his opinion, the worship of icons is disastrous, and he is even ashamed to admit that the contemplation of the Crucifixion helps his prayer. Invoking the saints, he adds, is an insult to our Lord.425

It is unlikely that Cyril shared these views with the Greeks. They knew him only as a capable and energetic patriarch who had foreign friends, as well as his firm opposition to Rome.

It was during these years that the Patriarchal throne of Constantinople was occupied by Neophytos II and Raphael II, who looked favorably on the union with Rome. When Neophytos allowed the Italian Greek to make a speech which openly called for union, Cyril was asked to preach a sermon against it and to remain in Constantinople to direct the action against the Latins.426 He was still there when Neophytos died in January 1612. By the majority of the Holy Synod, Kirill was elected Patriarch. But he could not, or would not, pay the Sublime Porte a certain sum to confirm his election. Cyril's opponents in the synod then put up another candidate, Timothy, bishop of Marmara, who promised the sultan and his ministers a larger sum than usual; and the synod was ordered to elect him.427

Timothy, chosen only because of his wealth, out of jealousy tried to cause trouble for Cyril in Egypt. Cyril even had to retire to Athos for some time, and then he visited Wallachia, whose ruler, Michael Bassarab, studied with him in Padua.

Earlier than 1617, he returned to Cairo, maintaining his Dutch connections. Thanks to these connections, his reputation in the Protestant world was very good. Around 1618 he received a letter from George Abbott, Archbishop of Canterbury (a Calvinist by conviction), proposing to send a number of young Greeks to study theology in England at the expense of King James I. In response, Cyril sent a Macedonian youth, Mitrophanes Kritopoulos, to England. The result, however, as it turned out later, was not favorable. Nevertheless, Abbott continued to correspond with Cyril.428 Patriarch Timothy tried to defame Cyril's good name by accusing him of Lutheranism. Cyril replied that since Timothy knew nothing about Luther and his teaching, he could not judge how far it could coincide with his own; therefore, it is better for him to remain silent.429

It is probable that, after reconciling with Timothy, Cyril again visited Constantinople in the autumn of 1620, and while he was there, Timothy died suddenly, and shortly after dinner with the Dutch envoy, a friend of Cyril. The Jesuits immediately spread the rumor that van Haag had poisoned him to make room for Cyril. Even if this were the case, the Holy Synod most likely did not object. Soon Kirill was unanimously elected patriarch. This time he paid the sum demanded by the High Porte.430