Cyprian of Slepche

Saint Cyprian of Slepche was a Bulgarian Orthodox monk, abbot of the monastery of Saint John the Baptist at Slepche, in Macedonia, and died a martyr on the day of Pascha in the year 1780. He was canonized in 2017 by the Macedonian Orthodox Church - Archdiocese of Ohrid. Our sources do not say whether the other Orthodox Churches recognize this canonization.

He served at the monastery of Saint John the Baptist at Slepche. According to the historian Sašo Cvetkovski he was born around 1720, since at his death he was about sixty. He became abbot of the monastery. There is a precious note of 1780 about his martyric death, written in Bulgarian, in the local dialect. An unknown author added it in the Slepche Tetraevangelion of 1548 of the well-⁠known Bulgarian cleric and man of letters Visarion of Slepche. It says that in the summer of 1780 there was great dearth and that the Turks plundered the monastery at Slepche and burned the abbot.

It is also said that in the plundering of the monastery the robbers stole holy relics in a silver box worth a hundred and twenty groschen, three icons, copper, clothes and everything they found in the church, and carried them to Monastir (Bitola). Abbot Cyprian was buried in the churchyard at Slepche. The note is important not only from the historical but also from the linguistic point of view, being written in Bulgarian, in the dialect of Bitola. The Tetraevangelion of Visarion of Slepche is in the National Library in Belgrade, Serbia, under number Pc 102. The monastery at Slepche is a known literary and translation centre in the Middle Ages and the Ottoman period. Writing activity began there in the eleventh century, and for eight centuries precious manuscripts were produced. Unfortunately, this precious scriptorium was plundered in the nineteenth century, and the manuscripts were carried to Russia, Serbia and other places.

On 24 February 2017 the Holy Synod of Bishops of the Macedonian Orthodox Church decided on the canonization of Cyprian of Slepche. The Macedonian Church states that during repair works in the monastery a silver casket with his relics was found. On 30 April 2017, the Sunday of the Myrrh-⁠bearing Women, a hierarchical Divine Liturgy was served at Slepche monastery, at which the holy hieromartyr Cyprian was entered in the diptychs of the saints. The Liturgy was led by Archbishop Stephen of Ohrid and Macedonia, together with the metropolitans Peter of Prespa and Pelagonia, Timothy of Debar and Kichevo, Agathangelos of Povardarie, Pimen of Europe, Hilarion of Bregalnica, Joseph of Tetovo and Gostivar, Bishop Clement of Heraclea, the archimandrites Parthenius, Nectarius and Nicholas, and the abbots Seraphim, Agathon and Gregory.