In the eyes of the Orthodox, Cyril's teaching was so revolutionary that to this day there have always been Orthodox Christians who have refused to believe that the Patriarch of Constantinople could have written such a "Confession of Faith." The work was declared a forgery and attributed to his friend Antoine Léger, both by the Geneva theologians who printed it and by some Jesuits, who apparently put Cyril's name in order to undermine his reputation. Why, they asked, did the text appear first in Latin? And why was it printed in Geneva? But Cyril himself announced his authorship in a series of letters and in a stormy audience with the French envoy, the Comte de Marcheville, at the end of 1631.446 He published the book in Geneva, because the printing house in Constantinople had been destroyed; the Latin version was necessary because he wanted to communicate his views to the Churches of the West. His letters confirm the propositions proclaimed in the "Confession" and even go even further. In his correspondence with Léger and his Dutch friends, he does not conceal the admiration which Calvin and his doctrine aroused in him.

Kirill did not consider himself a revolutionary. He must have realized that he was going against the accepted tradition; But since this tradition was oral, who could say exactly what it was? In one letter to his Polish friends, he expresses surprise that he is called a non-Orthodox. By temperament, he was an intellectual, with logical thinking, and did not sympathize with the apophatic trend traditionally followed by Orthodox theologians. Education strengthened his natural tastes. A student who studied under the neo-Aristotelian professors of Padua could not be satisfied with negative theology.

It took some time before a larger number of copies of the Confession reached the East. In 1630, Patriarch Theophan of Jerusalem wrote to the Metropolitan of Kiev assuring him that Cyril was not a heretic. He wrote that Cyril's views were known to him, and he considered them worthy of respect. Cyril's attitude to icons was quite respectful, and his judgment on predestination did not differ from the traditions of the Church. But Theophan had not yet seen the full text of the Confession.449 Anticipating the troubles that the Confession might bring, the Catholics did everything possible to make its contents known in Constantinople. Thomas Smith, who drew information from Edward Pocock, stated that the opposition was artificially organized by the Jesuits and Capuchins. The Dutch envoy wrote that "there is hardly anyone among the metropolitans, many of whom live in Constantinople, who would not risk his property, life and person to protect the said patriarch and his 'Confession'." Mr. van Haag was too optimistic. For several months, a secret conspiracy against the Patriarch was formed, consisting of no less than five metropolitans – Adrianople, Larissa, Chalcedon, Cyzicus and Nafpaktos. As a result, in October 1633, Cyril Kontaris, Metropolitan of Verria (Aleppo), was nominated as a candidate for the patriarchal throne. But to approve his election, Kirill Kontaris promised the Sublime Porte 50,000 thalers, and was unable to raise the money. A few days later he gave up the attempt and was exiled to the island of Tenedos. From there he wrote a letter of penance to Cyril Loukaris, who restored him to the cathedra.450

Six months later, the opposing metropolitans, some of whom had read the Confession and were deeply shaken by it, resumed their offensive. But they understood that the only way to depose the patriarch, who was backed by Protestant embassies, was to resort to the help of Catholic embassies. This meant that they had to present a candidate. Athanasius Pattelar, Metropolitan of Thessalonica, owed his position to Cyril Loukaris, who preferred it to Cyril Contaris; But he turned out to be ungrateful. Offering the Sultan 60,000 thalers and paying them in cash, the greater part of which was paid by the French and Austrian embassies, he obtained an order for the deposition of Cyril and his enthronement. Then the Dutch envoy got involved, who provided the sum of 70,000 thalers, with the help of which he restored Cyril to the throne. Athanasius went to Rome, hoping to receive the cardinal's cap. But the papal authorities assessed him as unreliable and incompetent. They simply gave him money to return to Thessalonica.451

Kirill Kontaris was a more stubborn opponent. The Austrian envoy Schmid-Schwarzenhorn persuaded the Catholics to support him. Schmid-Schwarzenhorn personally did not like him. "The Patriarch of Verria," as he called him in his letters to the emperor, "is a good and magnanimous bishop, kind to sinners and harsh to good, generous when it is not necessary, and miserly when it is necessary to be generous." Contaris was clever enough not to contact Rome openly, but he relied on the opposition caused by the theology of Cyril I. These sentiments grew; As a result, Kontaris was able to persuade the Holy Synod to depose Cyril I in March 1635.

Having paid the Porte 50,000 thalers collected with the help of Schmid-Schwarzenhorn, Kontaris became patriarch for the second time, under the name of Cyril II. but Schmid-Schwarzenhorn, who did not want his embassy to be suspected of encouraging the murder, came up with a better idea. The Grand Vizier agreed to exile Cyril I to the island of Rhodes. Schmid-Schwarzenhorn offered to provide a ship for this purpose and agreed that the ship would instead sail to Italy and take Cyril to Rome, where he would be handed over to the Inquisition. But it cost 800 thalers to hire a ship, and another 500 thalers cost to bribe the crew. When Cyril II was asked to deliver the money, he said that a cheaper vessel should be found. In the meantime the plan had become known to the Dutch envoy. He sent a messenger to warn the governor of Rhodes, and himself bribed the captain of a ship hired by Contaris to take Lukaris to Chios. There the governor of Rhodes was waiting for the former patriarch and himself escorted him to his island, and the ship was sent back to Constantinople in disgrace.

Cyril Lukaris spent fifteen months in Rhodes. In March 1636, Cyril II convened a council in Constantinople, which condemned Cyril I as a heretic. But the Holy Synod was suspicious of Cyril II's ties with Rome. In June 1636 he assembled and deposed him. Now it was his turn to go to Rhodes, and the ship was ordered to return Cyril I. Meanwhile, Neophytos, Metropolitan of Heraclia, was elected patriarch. He was a friend of Cyril I and ascended the throne temporarily to arrange the lifting of the anathema. By March of the following year, Cyril Lukaris was again patriarch.452

Now, however, he did not enjoy such influence. His views were all too well known. Many Orthodox Christians who supported him in the struggle against Rome were amazed by them. Nor could he count on the support of the British Embassy. Sir Peter Wych left Constantinople in 1633 or 1634; his successor, Sir Sackville Crowe, was aware of the controversy. Mr. van Haag was about to leave. Antoine Léger left Constantinople, and his friendly successor, Sartoris, died soon after his arrival.453 In the meantime, Schmid-Schwarzenhorn renewed his attempts to depose him, partly for the sake of the Catholics, partly to weaken Dutch influence, and also to prove that the Austrian embassy was more competent than the French had been before. Bribery of the referees brought Kontaris back from Rhodes. In May 1638, Sultan Murad IV declared war on Persia; the grand vizier, Bairam Pasha, rode ahead of him to prepare his way through Anatolia. One of the priests of Cyril Contaris, named Lamerno, hastened to his camp and persuaded him, with the help of a large bribe secured by Schmid-Schwarzenhorn, to accuse Cyril Lukaris before the Sultan of high treason. The vizier chose an opportune moment. The Don Cossacks, incited by the Persians, attacked Ottoman territory in the Azov region. When meeting with the Sultan, the vizier assured him that this had been prepared by Cyril Lukaris. Murad, who considered Kirill to be the cause of anxiety, allowed himself to be convinced. A message was sent to the governor of Constantinople, and on June 20, 1638, Cyril was arrested and imprisoned in a fortress on the Bosphorus. Five days later, he was informed that he should be taken out of there. He was put on a small ship, and when the ship sailed into the Sea of Marmara, the soldiers strangled him and buried his body in the coastal strip. The next day, according to tradition, they sold the few things he had with him. Someone recognized his pectoral cross; This is how his fate became known. Angry crowds of Greeks gathered in front of the gates of the house of Cyril Contaris, shouting: "Pilate, give us the body!" They did it, but threw it into the sea. There he was found by Greek fishermen and identified; he was buried in the little monastery of St. Andrew on an island off the Asiatic coast.454

By order of the Sultan, Cyril Kontaris returned to the patriarchal throne. In September 1638 he convened a council, which was attended by the patriarchs of Alexandria (Cyril's former disciple Kritopoulos) and of Jerusalem by his old friend Theophanes, at which council Cyril and his theology were present. were convicted. But in December of the same year, Cyril II signed a document of his loyalty to Pope Urban VIII. In June 1639, Cyril II was deposed, declared a heretic, and exiled to North Africa, where he died. A moderate cleric, Parthenius I, was elected in his place, but Parthenius rashly allowed Cyril Loukaris' friend, Theophilus Korydalleus, to preach a sermon on his accession to the throne. Korydalleus praised Cyril and his labors. Such loyalty immediately revived the confrontation at a time when the Orthodox world wanted an end to the strife. In response to the speech of Coridalles, the Cretan Meletius Sirigos received permission to deliver a sermon a few months later, in which he condemned the Calvinistic teaching of Cyril, although Cyril himself was mentioned in passing. Sirigos was also asked to write a treatise in which he repeated the condemnation. This work appeared in 1640; Many Orthodox, however, felt that he had gone too far in the opposite direction. Indeed, with the exception of the denial of the double procession of the Holy Spirit. It could have been written by a Roman theologian. The strife continued. In 1641, the ruler of Moldavia, Vasily Lupul, an intractable Albanian businessman who tried to restore order in the patriarchal finances, wrote a pleading letter to the bishops asking them to stop their strife. In May 1642, Parthenius convened a council, at which Cyril's "Confession of Faith" was examined article by article, and some articles were condemned. To appease some of Cyril's supporters, Parthenius issued a document, supported by the Jesuit Skarga, which suggested that Cyril showed sympathy for Rome. Subsequent councils repeated this accusation. The most remarkable of the theologians of the seventeenth century was condemned as a propagator of heresy.455

His disciples scattered. Korydalleus, by virtue of his speech, was appointed metropolitan of Naupactus and Arta; but he was soon deposed and returned to private life. His disciple Nathaniel Konopios hastily left for England. Meletius Pantogalos, whom Cyril had appointed Metropolitan of Ephesus, was deposed by Parthenius I and left Constantinople before the signing of the document condemning his friend. He was closely acquainted with van Haag and Antoine Léger, so he went to Holland to study at the University of Leiden. There he was well received, especially after the signing of the act in support of Cyril's writings. In 1645 he intended to return to Constantinople, armed with letters and a recommendation from the Dutch States-General; During his journey, however, he died. In Leiden, he was joined by the Kefallonian Hierotheos, abbot of Sisis and a friend of Nicodemus Metaxas, who had been assigned to Cephalonia after the destruction of the printing house. Hierotheos never met Cyril, but probably became friends with van Haag during a visit to Constantinople after Cyril's death. In 1643 he went to Venice, vainly trying to raise funds to rebuild his monastery, which had been destroyed by an earthquake. From Venice he decided to go to Holland, where he remained until 1651, except for a trip to England. In Holland, he translated several Calvinistic theological works into Greek, with which he fully agreed. Afterwards he spent several years in Geneva, and in 1658 returned to his monastery in Cephalonia, where he died before 1664. but his writings were not at all distributed in the East.456

Cyril Lukaris failed. He engaged his Church in a strife that led it to issue tenets of faith different from his own, but almost as controversial. He only made an attempt to bring the Orthodox Church into line with the more viable Churches of the West. Lutheran evangelism did not suit the Greek temperament; besides, Anglicanism had nothing important to offer. The Lutheran and Anglican initiatives did not meet with any response. But the heavy, logical intellectualism of Calvinism attracted to itself the realistic, rational side of the Greek character. Had Cyril achieved his goal, the intellectual level of the Orthodox Church would undoubtedly have been raised, and many of its dark features of later times would have been overcome. But the Greek character had another side, namely, a love of the mysterious. The Greek is equally a mystic and an intellectual; The Orthodox Church drew its strength from the former mystical tradition. The strength of her survival in the vicissitudes of the world lies mainly in her perception of the transcendent mystery of the Godhead. Kirill never understood this. For him and his followers, the apophatic approach led only to ignorance and stagnation. He could not appreciate the sustaining power of tradition. The logic of Geneva was as little suited to solving the problems of Orthodoxy as the disciplined legalism of Rome.

Chapter 7. The Church and the Churches: The Anglican Experience