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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 228

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EXCERPTA CYPRIA. This monastery is built ou the top of a mountain, enjoying a very tine view towards the sea and the mainland of Cara-mania. It is partly destroyed, and judging by the ruins it must have been a large and beautiful building. It is inhabited now by about twenty monks who are extremely poor. In many parts of the church you see the arms of Lnsignan and of several noble Venetian families. We halted there long enough to rest, and returned the same evening to G-eriiies, where we found the wind favourable and embarked at once. We coasted along all night, and in the morning found ourselves at Cape S. Andro, at the extremity of the island, looking towards Syria and thirty leagues distant from (xerines. SYNAXARIA. After the volume containing the Liturgies, the most important among the service books of the Orthodox Eastern Church are the Μηνιαία, "which approach more nearly to the Breviary, or rather to its Proprium Sanctorum, than anything else : though containing much that is not in that, and omitting much that is." If we take oue of these twelve volumes, and look through the office of any particular saint, we linci that after the sixth Oile with its Theotokion and Heirmos comes a Stiehos, "two iambics, containing the kind of martyrdom, with a hexameter, setting forth the day. These lines, which are always unmetrical, nearly always contain some conceit, often enough far-fetched and untranslatable. For îustauce, ΉΧίαν ίπποι, ròi' ôë ·5<πλονΐ' Ήλίαν ΕΪϊ ovpavovs ανήγον ωΐ Ίπποι .«Oes* Τίστμον Έλισσιιΐίΐί ètnórg Χάχίν I/8É τ(τάρτη." After the Stiehos follows the Sj/muntriu», or extracts from the Menologion, containing a short history of the saint commemorated. (See J. M. Neale's History of the Holy Eastern Church, vol. n. p. 838.) The offices of certain saints honoured especially or exclusively in Cyprus were printed at \'enice in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. These little volumes are exceedingly rare, and, as the value of the Symuvariu has been recognised by the editors of the Arehiivs île l'Orient Latin, translations will hold a fitting place in the Excerpta. In one volume, edited by Chrysanthos. Archbishop of Cyprus, 8vo, Venice, 1779. are the ΆκαΚινθίαι T«J' οσίων Ά j'MOTH TR ι Ο ν, ΧπριτωκΟΓ, Αυξεντίου και Kf vòc a—τον 'Aw. και Εναγγ. ΑΣΊΝΗ, τοΰ Άγ. Δημητριάναν Κνθημης, και Κωνσταντίνου μάρτυρος. In another, by the same editor, 8vo, Venice, 1774, are the Άκολουθίαι of SS. Heracleidios and Mnason, both Bishops of Tatuasti». In the Synaxaristes, eil. Sergios Ch. Raphtane, 3 vols. 4to, 1868, will be found, under their several feast-days, short lives of other Cypriot saints: February 7, 9, 17, Apriou, Philagrion, Auxibios. March 2, Theodotos. May 4, 12,14, Lazarus, Epiphanios, Therapon. June 11, 16,17, 23, Barnabas, Tychou, Hiilou-eides, Aristocles. September 20, 21, Meletios, Isaac. November 12, Ioannes Eleenion. December 12, Spyridou. The services proper for January 24 and September 25, the days ou which is commemorated the Paphiau Hermit, S. Neophytos, were printed at Venice in 1778, and reprinted at Nicosia in 1893 (cf. De Mas Latrie, Trésor ile Çliwnoloyie, 1889, c. 911, 912). Philon (Feb. 6), Synesios (June 8), aud Thyrsos (Aug. 5), all Bishops of Carpasia, and Photeine (Aug. 15—possibly the Samaritan woman of S. John iv.) have Aculoutliiai still preserved in a MS. of 1733 in the church of the Holy Trinity, Rhizo-Carpas. They enjoy some fame in that neighbourhood. S. Onesiphoros Is commemorated at Anarita, in the District of Paphos, on July 18. I have seen extracts from a faulty aud mutilated copy of his Synaxarion. He was born at Constantinople of high-placed Christian parents: is styled Angastalis and chief captain of the fleet. Saved from shipwreck he lived a hermit life, and both alive and dead worked miracles of healing. S. Rlieginos—his earlier name was Bouomilex—who with his fellow-soldier Orestes is commemorated on August 20, was of Chalcedou, a Christian from Iiis childhood, and a Tyro or Centurion. He was

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