Commemoration Day: March 18 (31)
Biography
Father of the Church, bishop of Jerusalem (350-386), ascetic and preacher, who sought to raise the importance of Jerusalem as the centre of the whole Christian Church. At that time Jerusalem was subordinate to the metropolitan of Caesarea, which did not at all suit St. Cyril. He was deposed three times at the instigation of the bishop of Caesarea, Acacius, who demanded that Cyril accept Arianism. On the occasion of a heavenly sign — the vision of the Cross of the Lord in the sky over Jerusalem on the feast of Pentecost in 351 — Cyril sent the "Letter to the Pious Emperor Constantius". Cyril spent much effort on pacifying his flock in Jerusalem and on the struggle against heretics, whose condemnation he signed at the Second Ecumenical Council.
Hymnography
Kontakion to St. Cyril, Archbishop of Jerusalem, Tone 4
O wise one, by thy tongue, through divine inspiration, thou didst enlighten thy people/ to honour the one Trinity,/ undivided in nature yet distinct in Persons./ Therefore, rejoicing, we celebrate thine all-holy memory,// as thou offerest us to God as an intercessor.