The Hagiography of Byzantine Cyprus
Saints, Hagiographers and Texts (Fourth to Thirteenth Century)

Shows Cyprus as a distinct place in Christian late antiquity and the Middle Ages through texts dedicated to its saints.

Stephanos Efthymiadis (Author)

9781009355605, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 10 July 2025

360 pages, 1 map
23.4 x 16 x 2.3 cm, 0.66 kg

In an empire such as Byzantium, where the large urban centres monopolised cultural activity and literary creation, writing texts in praise of local saints offered a noteworthy incentive for literary expression on the periphery. Between the establishment of Christianity on the island in the fourth century and its passing from Byzantine to Frankish rule in the thirteenth, Cyprus saw a significant number of hagiographical texts dedicated to its bishop saints and defending the claims and privileges of its Church. This book offers the first systematic study of this body of texts, inquiring into their literary background and engagement both with contemporary Mediterranean history and with issues specifically affecting Cyprus. It also draws attention to hagiographical texts written in later times as reflecting the enduring interest of Byzantine Christianity in the saints of Cyprus, whose cult had by then acquired a universal appeal.

Preface
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Sanctity and hagiographic literature on Cyprus
2. In the footsteps of the Apostles: the hagiography of the Apostle Barnabas and the first bishops of Cyprus
3. The hagiography of the fourth-century bishops of Cyprus
4. St Ioannes the Almsgiver (d. 620): the Cypriot patriarch of Alexandria and his hagiographical tradition (BHG 886–888e)
5. A special case: St Artemon and his Life or Passio (BHG 175)
6. Two more seventh-century Cypriot hagiographers
7. The hagiography of Cyprus after late antiquity
8. An end and a beginning: Cypriot hagiography in the hundred years of Latin rule
Epilogue
Map and toponymy of Byzantine Cyprus
Appendix
References
Index of manuscripts cited
Index.

Subject Areas: European history [HBJD]