Cyril of Thessalonica

Holy Venerable New Martyr Cyril of Thessalonica was an Athonite monk, born in Thessaloniki, who received martyrdom by burning at the stake on 6 July 1566. The Church commemorates him on 6 July.

The only source for his martyrdom is Athonite manuscript no. 347 of the Dionysiou Monastery, a text written in an elevated language, probably by the author of the Life himself, dating from the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century. According to the Life, he was born in 1544, in Thessaloniki, in the time of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, with the worldly name Kyriakos. His father, Peio, had moved with his family from Pelagonia to the acropolis of Thessaloniki. At ten he became an orphan and came under the care of his two maternal uncles, one of whom had become a Muslim. The Muslim uncle managed to obtain full guardianship and sent him to learn the trade of tanning with a Muslim master. Kyriakos, however, on the advice of the other uncle, a pious Christian, secretly left his guardian and set out with a group of Athonite monks who were in Thessaloniki. At fourteen he became a monk at the Hilandar Monastery on the Holy Mountain, with the name Cyril.

Because of his youth he lived eight years in a dependency of the monastery. At twenty-⁠two he went to Thessaloniki with two other monks and met his Christian uncle. But, together with his cousin, he chanced upon the Muslim uncle, who recognized Cyril and, with the help of other Muslims, seized him and accused him of having accepted Islam and then renounced it.

Cyril was brought before the Turkish judge in Thessaloniki, who tried to persuade him to renounce the Christian faith and accept Islam, but without success. The next day the judge used threats, also without result, and Cyril was condemned to death by burning. On 6 July 1566 a crowd of Muslims inflamed with anger led him to the site of the old Byzantine hippodrome, beside the church of Saints Constantine and Helen, which names Cyril first in its synaxarion. The Turkish commander tried once more to bend him to Islam with promises of gain. Cyril refused, saying that his only wealth was Christ, and was burned at the stake.

The martyr's relics were found in a clay urn in 1972, in the crypt of the church of Saints Constantine and Helen, which had been demolished for renewal. The right-⁠hand chapel of this church is dedicated to him.