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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 190

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uf Tamassus, they were present at the council of ChalcedVm. Eliodorns, bishop of Amatus, Echio, of Arsenoe, Epaphroditus, of Daeuiassns, Didiinus, uf Lapithos, Evagrius, of Solis, Denys, deacon of Chitrtea, and Sapithian, of Papho, whose tomb was several times shown me in a very deep grotto in the ehapel called by the vulgar the seven sleepers. Of these seven sleepers the simple folk tell a thousand stories ; among others, they are so deluded that they believe that these seven sleepers are still alive ; their priests have always kept them in this error. This chapel is between the town of Papho, now mostly ruined, and the tower near the sea, on the top uf whieh can still be seen the anus of Savoy carved in white marble. I will not leave out Reginius, of Constantia, a personage greatly distinguished for his holy life and deep wisdom. For brevity's sake I eannot here undertake to recall to the reader other wise and holy men to whom this island has given birth, most of whom, each in his day, were present at the four first councils, and at several others held iu Africa, Europe and Asia. There was no mention then of archbishops, only of bishops, and of certain patriarchs who lived in the famons old city of Nicossia, between whom and the cardinals of Rome there was no difference, except that they wore blaek hats while the cardinals wore red. Truly, in writing the lives of the seven good fathers mentioned above, meseems I was entering a second terrestrial paradise and place of rest, so earned away was I by the content which filled my spirit. But contrariwise when I think of the folly and ignorance in which are now sunk the patriarchs, bishops and prelates of the Greek church I fancy I am entering a labyrinth of perpetual torment. To say the truth and in no wise to delude my reader, having lived in Greece and travelled hither and thither over the continent, the sea and the islands, conferring many times in many years with these Grascising Greeks, I have not found there or observed one man fit to carry the books of a Bessarion, an Argyropoulos, a Gaza, and others who were present at the eonncil of Florence. These prelates have no care for anything but to take their pleasure, and drink like Greeks their good Carni iot or Cypriot wine. As to their secular priests everyone knows that they are all married ; the monks and bishops are nut. But the patriarch called Nestorius reformed them in such wise that they were compelled thenceforward to live as Greek monks do, and this maniage of bishops lasted 378 years. This is all I had to tell you of this island, called in Turkish Qibris Adasy. It was seized and overrun by the Turks, while its true masters and lords were the Signory of Venice, in 1571, not without great loss on the side of the infidels, who besieged the eity of Famagosta; the defenders whereof, after receiving 168,000 cannon shots, surrendered to the inerey of the conqueror. EXCERPTA CYPRIA.

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