Alexander of Cyprus or Alexander Cyprius, perhaps also known as Alexander the Monk or Alexander Monachus, was apparently a 6th-century

Cypriot Cypriot (in older sources often "Cypriote") refers to someone or something of, from, or related to the country of Cyprus. * Cypriot people, or of Cypriot descent; this includes: **Armenian Cypriots **Greek Cypriots **Maronite Cypriots **Turkish C ...

monk active in the cloister near the sanctuary of St. Barnabas in

Salaminia The ''Salaminia'' ( el, Σαλαμινία) was, along with ''Paralos (ship), Paralos'', one of the two Athenian sacred ships, sacred triremes of the Classical Athens, Athenian navy during the late 5th century BC. Frequently employed as a messenger ...

Constantina Flavia Valeria Constantina (also sometimes called ''Constantia'' and ''Constantiana''; el, Κωνσταντίνα; b. after 307/before 317 – d. 354), later known as Saint Constance, was the eldest daughter of Roman emperor Constantine the Great ...

. He also had as one of his aims the authentication of the ecclesiastical independence of Cyprus.

Date and Work

Alexander seems to have lived any time between the mid-6th century and the 9th century. The Byzantinist

Alexander Kazhdan Alexander Petrovich Kazhdan (russian: Алекса́ндр Петро́вич Кажда́н; 3 September 1922 – 29 May 1997) was a Soviet-American Byzantinist. Among his publications was the three-volume ''Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium'', a comp ...

argued that the traditional view of placing him in the mid-6th century was not necessarily valid.

Cyril Mango Cyril Alexander Mango (14 April 1928 – 8 February 2021) was a British scholar of the history, art, and architecture of the Byzantine Empire. He is celebrated as one of the leading Byzantinists of the 20th century. Mango was Koraes Professor ...

and John W. Nesbitt maintain that he was a 6th-century author, according to his literary interests. Alexander composed a treatise called "On the Finding of the Cross" (''de inventatione sanctae crucis''), covering the

history of Christianity The history of Christianity concerns the Christian religion, Christian countries, and the Christians with their various denominations, from the 1st century to the present. Christianity originated with the ministry of Jesus, a Jewish teach ...

from the emperor

Tiberius Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...

to the discovery of the cross by Helena, the mother of

Constantine the Great Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to Constantine the Great and Christianity, convert to Christiani ...

. There is also a

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

version of this work, with the earliest extant manuscript dated to the 9th or 10th century.

Identification

Nothing is known about the life of Alexander. Many scholars identify him with Alexander the Monk, the author of an enkomion of the apostle

Barnabas Barnabas (; arc, ܒܪܢܒܐ; grc, Βαρνάβας), born Joseph () or Joses (), was according to tradition an early Christian, one of the prominent Christian disciples in Jerusalem. According to Acts 4:36, Barnabas was a Cypriot Jew. Name ...

: but Kazhdan Kazhdan 1991: ibid. views this identification as arbitrary.

References

Bibliography

* Works collected in

Migne Jacques Paul Migne (; 25 October 1800 – 24 October 1875) was a French priest who published inexpensive and widely distributed editions of theological works, encyclopedias, and the texts of the Church Fathers, with the goal of providing a u ...

Patrologia Graeca The ''Patrologia Graeca'' (or ''Patrologiae Cursus Completus, Series Graeca'') is an edited collection of writings by the Christian Church Fathers and various secular writers, in the Greek language. It consists of 161 volumes produced in 1857– ...

, vol. 87.3 coll. 4016-88 * ''

Clavis Patrum Graecorum The ''Clavis Patrum Graecorum'' is a series of volumes published by Brepols of Turnhout in Belgium. The series aims to contain a list of all the Fathers of the Church who wrote in Greek from the 1st to the 8th centuries. For each it lists all th ...

7398-7400'' * S. Salaville, "Le moine Alexandre de Chypre," EO 15 (1912) 134-137 (discussion on his date) * A. Kazhdan, "Alexander the Monk", The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, vol. I, p. 60 (Oxford 1991). Cypriot writers 6th-century Byzantine monks 6th-century Christian monks 6th-century Byzantine writers {{Cyprus-bio-stub