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Rh anti-Roman teacher Maximus, afterwards bishop of Cerigo. Subsequently he travelled in Germany and Switzerland, perhaps also in England during the reign of Elizabeth, though that is doubtful. In the year 1595 he returned to Alexandria and was ordained a deacon. During this period of his life we find him for a time at Constantinople, though on what business nobody knows. The Greeks having held a conference at Wilna with several Lutheran nobles and divines to seek a basis of union between the two communions, although with no results, Sigismund, the king of Poland, an energetic champion of the papacy, forbade the propagation of Greek Church doctrines in his dominions under severe penalties. Meletius then sent Cyril to Poland on behalf of the cause of the Eastern Church, and he settled down in Wilna for a time, supporting himself by teaching the Greek language. He was now like an ambassador from the Greek Church, an intermediary between Poland and the East. The king of Poland sent him to Meletius, exhorting the patriarch to revere the primacy of St. Peter and acknowledge the pope. Meletius returned a respectful but negative reply, and at the same time formally appointed Cyril his exarch in Sclavonia. Meanwhile Sigismund began to persecute in the interest of the Uniats—the party in favour of uniting the Greek Church with Rome on the Roman terms. Necessarily Cyril had to "lie low" if he would remain in Poland while this tempest was sweeping over the country. But there is no evidence that he yielded any more than by keeping silence. At a later time his bitter enemy the Jesuit Sarga circulated a report to the effect that he had written a letter to the archbishop of Löwenberg professing his adherence to the Church of Rome. The letter was a forgery and the accusation based upon it a barefaced calumny.

On his return to Alexandria Cyril was sent to his native island, to collect the usual contributions for the patriarchate. In the year 1602 he succeeded Meletius as orthodox patriarch of Alexandria. While he was in this