Friday, November 13, 2026

It is the 13th of November 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Have we got a doozy for you today. Was the Eastern Orthodox Cyril Lucaris- born on Crete on this day in 1572- and future Patriarch of Alexandria and Constantinople for the Eastern Orthodox Church- secretly a Calvinist? Might we follow some historians calling him the “Protestant Patriarch” or the “Calvinist of Constantinople,” or is the stance of many in the Eastern Orthodox church correct that this was propaganda based on a forged document?

 

The place of the Eastern Orthodox Church during the century of Reformations remains one of the more ripe places for modern research. We know that certain Protestants and Catholics courted the Eastern church thinking that if 2 of the now 3 major branches of Christianity could unite, they might bury a common enemy. Of course, this didn’t happen… but not for lack of trying.

 

The context of 1452 is crucial, of course. With Constantinople falling to the Ottoman Turks, the Eastern church had its own concerns. Not to mention the fear by both Western churches that the Turks weren’t done moving Westward and looking for more capitals to sack.

 

By the mid-1500s, Philip Melanchthon and the Lutherans at Tübingen had sought rapprochement with the East. The Roman Catholic church also sought to make inroads, especially with the Union of Brest, which convinced some Orthodox to acknowledge the primacy of the Pope but retain their own distinctive ceremonies. It was this Union which seems to have especially irked our man Cyril.

 

Cyril was educated in the West- at the Orthodox school in Venice and then at Padua. He may have also spent time in both Wittenberg and Geneva. By the early 1600s, he had risen to the office of Patriarch of Alexandria- a position he held until 1620. During this time he had an especially difficult time with the Ottoman Turks and sought out allies in the West- from England to the Netherlands and Geneva.

 

He would be made Patriarch of Constantinople in 1620 and during the next 18 years would be deposed 5 times under pressure from both the Turks and the Pro-Catholic French and Habsburgs who thought that Cyril was too close to the Reformers. For instance, he was behind the first translation of the Bible into modern Greek and arranged for the first printing press in Constantinople (it was subsequently destroyed by the Turks). Cyril had friendly relations with King James I and even gifted him the Codex Alexandrinus- today still in the British Library and one of the oldest surviving Bibles.

 

And if that wasn’t enough, the real backbreaker for his Orthodox defenders came with the discovery of the Oriental Confession of the Christian Faith- published in Geneva in 1629 and beginning:

“Cyril, Patriarch of Constantinople, offers this brief confession on behalf of all Christians to those who ask about the faith and worship of the Greek Church—that is, the Eastern Church—and what it believes concerning the orthodox faith. He presents it as a testimony before both God and humanity, with a clear conscience and without any pretense or deception.”

It then goes on to list 18 articles that include doctrines such as Justification by Faith alone, a rejection of all the sacraments except 2, the authority of Scripture over the church, and predestination.

Had the Patriarch crossed the Bosphorus and abandoned Eastern Orthodoxy? He was alive when it was published, and to our knowledge he never disavowed it. If he wrote it, or allowed someone to write it in his name, perhaps it was to strengthen the allegiance with some in the West against the Turks.

The Orthodox church would condemn the confession with a detailed rebuttal, but it is still an open question by many in the East as to whether or not this was a forgery. There are Eastern Orthodox believers who today still claim it is a forgery, while the majority of scholarship over the last half century or so seems to believe that Cyril did write, or at least approve, this confession. It’s not quite an unsolved mystery (I think he probably approved of it for political reasons) but remains a sticky piece of confessional history. And being in between warring factions didn’t bode well for Cyril. He was betrayed by Catholics and condemned by the Sultan, who had him strangled on board a ship and thrown into the Bosporus in 1638.

The mystery of the so-called Protestant Patriarch- the Calvinist of Constantinople- Cyril Lucaris remains open to many. Born on this day in 1572, he was 65 years old.

 

The Last word for today comes from… well, the lectionary is fully in its end-of-the-church-year apocalyptic swing- so, let’s jump forward a bit and get a good word from 1 Thessalonians 5- the final benediction:

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

19 Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not treat prophecies with contempt 21 but test them all; hold on to what is good, 22 reject every kind of evil.

23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 24 The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.

 

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 13th of November 2026 brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who has to admit that the Orthodox have the coolest hats… he might be jealous- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man with the preaching assignment this weekend of the Thief in the Night passage from Thessalonians… gotta see if I can find a good clip from that movie to scare the congregation… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.