Cyril of Constantinople

Who was Cyril of Constantinople?

Saint Cyril of Constantinople was a General of the Carmelites and prior of the hermits on Mount Carmel for three years. He is reputed to have had the gift of prophecy.

One of the pseudo-prophecies, given out towards the end of the thirteenth century by the Franciscan Spirituals, and attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem, became known to Guido de Perpignan and other Carmelites at Paris, who ascribed it to their former general, now considered a saint and a doctor of the Church, his feast day being introduced in 1399.

In the Breviary lessons he was also confused with Cyril of Alexandria. When the mistake was discovered, his title of doctor was justified by attributing to him a work, of which no trace exists, on the procession of the Holy Ghost. The so-called "Cyrillic prophecy" or angelic oracle Divinum oraculum S. Cyrillo Carmelitae Constantinopolitano solemni legatione angeli missum, so called because it is supposed to have been brought by an angel while Cyril was saying Mass, is a lengthy document of eleven chapters in incomprehensible language, with a commentary falsely ascribed to Abbot Joachim. It is first mentioned by Arnold of Villanova, c. 1295; Telesphorus of Cosenza applied it to the Western Schism and treated it as an utterance of the Holy Ghost.