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Rh consecrations of the most holy bishops according to the canons of the holy Fathers and ancient custom" (Canon viii.). The caution of the council in making this decision conditional is very remarkable. But no patriarch of Antioch in later times was able to produce evidence rebutting the statement of the Cypriolites concerning the "ancient custom."

In the reign of Zeno ( 474–491), Peter the Fuller, then patriarch of Antioch, revived the claim to authority over Cyprus, and the emperor favoured his cause, till the alleged appearance of St. Barnabas in a vision, leading to the discovery of his bones in a chest under a carob tree, silenced all opposition. Nevertheless, a certain connection with Antioch was preserved, Cyprus receiving the holy chrism from the patriarch of that city, but of necessity in those later times when only patriarchs could consecrate it. Therefore they were misled who took this fact as a sign of general subjection. Subsequently Cyprus became famous as the see of the Church writer Epiphanius. In the year 647 the island was conquered by the Arabs, the chief city Constantia destroyed, the metropolitan church profaned, and many of the citizens massacred. So cruel was the Mussulman oppression that a great number of the inhabitants, led by their archbishop John, left Cyprus and settled in the province of the Hellespont at the invitation of the emperor, Justinian There they preserved their ecclesiastical independence, as an orthodox Church, now within the confines of the patriarchate of Constantinople, but no more under its jurisdiction than they had been previously under that of Antioch, The migration of these "pilgrim fathers" was not a success. They were not destined to anticipate the story of the Mayflower and the founders of New England. Many perished on the journey. The remnant who landed did not stay long; they soon returned to Cyprus, where they lived on as best they could under the Mohammedan rule, but still as a distinctly organised Church.

Under Constantine Copronymus Cyprus was temporarily