CYPRUS, CHURCH OF. The Church of Cyprus is in com munion and in doctrinal agreement with the other Orthodox Churches of the East (see ORTHODOX EASTERN CHURCH), but 1S independent and subject to no patriarch. This position it has always claimed. At any rate, its independence "by ancient custom" was recognized, as against the claims of the patriarch of Antioch, by the council of Ephesus, A.D. 431, by an edict of the emperor Zeno (to whom the church had sent a cogent argument on its own behalf, the alleged body of its reputed founder St. Barnabas, then just discovered at Salamis), and by the Trullan Council in 692. Attempts have been made subsequently by the patriarchs of Antioch to claim authority over it, the last as recently as 1600 ; but they came to nothing. And excepting for the period during which Cyprus was in the hands of the Lusignans and the Venetian Republic (1193-15 71), the Church has never lost its independence. This period of bondage ceased at the conquest of the island by the Turks: the Latin hierarchy disappeared (the cathedral at Nicosia is now used as a mosque), and the native church emerged into comparative freedom. In 1821, it is true, all the bishops and many of their flock were put to death by way of discouraging sympathies with the Greeks ; but successors were soon consecrated, by bishops sent from Antioch at the request of the patriarch of Constantinople, and on the whole the Church has prospered. The bishops-elect required the berat of the sultan; but having received this, they enjoyed no little civil portance. Since 1878 the berat has not been given, and the bishops are less influential. There are now four bishoprics, Nicosia, Paphos, Kition and Kyrenia, the bishop of the first named being archbishop primate.