Saint Cyril Loukaris Patriarch of Constantinople was murdered on this day in 1638. By the end of the fifteenth century, the Byzantine Empire ceased to exist. The Romans, as the Byzantines identified themselves, became Greeks living under the Ottoman, Italian, or Russian rule. The future Constantine Loukaris was born in Crete, which was in Venetian hands since the end of the Fourth Crusade (1204). Under foreign reign, the Church became one of the areas where Greeks could apply themselves. Constantine’s uncle, Meletios (Pegas), was Patriarch of Alexandria, who, in 1593, initiated the council in Constantinople to recognize the Russian Patriarchate (established by Patriarch Jeremiah II in 1589). Meletios arranged Constantine’s basic education at the Greek Church in Venetia, where the boy studied languages. In 1592, Constantine graduated from the university in Padua and returned home to Crete. With the approval of his uncle, Constantine was tonsured a monk in Constantinople in 1593 or 1594. In 1448, the church in Muscovy proclaimed temporary independence from the Ecumenical Patriarchate. This independence eventually became permanent. The Orthodox under the Polish-Lithuanian rule remained under the Patriarchate of Constantinople. In July 1569, the union was signed in Lublin, turning Lithuania and Poland into one single entity under the rule from Warsaw. This union resulted in oppression of the Orthodox population and in ecclesiastical union signed between the Orthodox bishops and the Roman Catholic Church in Brest in 1596. In 1594, Patriarch Meletios sent Priestmonk Meletios as his exarch there. In an environment of counter-reformation, Polish Lutherans became allies of the Orthodox. The Lutherans produced a number of Catechisms, a genre which may later influence the famous Patriarch Cyril Loukaris’ Confession of the Faith. In 1601, after the death of his uncle, Cyril was elected Patriarch of Alexandria. There Cyril actively polemicized with a major force behind counterreformation – the Society of Jesus. This anti-Catholic position resulted in sympathies from Protestant diplomats in Constantinople and concerns about Loukaris from the Roman Catholic diplomats. The next year Cyril began intensive communication with Cornelis Haga, the first Dutch envoy to Sublime Porta and then with Dutch theologians. In the correspondence, Cyril expressed his unfortunate opinion about transformation of bread and wine into the true body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ: Loukaris believed in Christ’s mere spiritual presence in Holy Gifts. Dealing with Jesuits in Poland, St. Cyril realized the value of education. Therefore, when in 1620 he became Patriarch of Constantinople, Loukaris attempted to recreate activities of Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, founded in Rome in 1622. With the help of the British Ambassador, he even set up a printshop in Constantinople. As a result, the Jesuits reported Loukaris’ activities to the sultan, accusing him of destabilizing the empire (they referred to anti-Jewish tracts published in the shop). As a result of the investigation, all Jesuits were sent out of Constantinople, but at the same time the printshop was closed down. In Spring of 1629 Patriarch Cyril Loukaris’ Confession of the Faith was published in Geneva. There he accused Greeks in deviating from Church Tradition and recognized only two sacraments: baptism and the eucharist. The publication of the catechism stirred confusion. Roman Catholic polemicists began to treat the text produced by the ecumenical patriarch as an official text of the Orthodox Church. At the same time Calvinists would refer to this text arguing that the Orthodox Church deny the real presence of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. For all this St. Cyril paid with his own life. The pretender to the throne of the ecumenical patriarch, Cyril II Kontares, accused, not without basis, St. Cyril in tipping off the Russians about the movements of the Ottoman Army around the Sea of Azov. Thus St. Cyril was suffocated by the order of Sultan Murad IV. St. Cyril was canonized by the Patriarchate of Alexandria. His name is contained in menologies of the Greek Churches and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.
Source:
M.M.Bernatskii, “Kirill I Lukaris,” Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopedia. | 
