Life and Ministry
According to the synaxarion, Cyril was born at Antioch in Syria and became a disciple of the Apostle Peter. Peter installed him as Bishop of Catania, a city on the eastern coast of Sicily, placing him among the early bishops who carried the apostolic preaching into the western Mediterranean.
The tradition presents him as a pious and capable shepherd who governed his church wisely, and it relates that the Lord granted him the gift of working wonders. The hymnography for his feast praises him as a rule of faith and an image of humility, exalted through his lowliness and enriched through his poverty.
The miracle most associated with him is the transformation of a bitter spring. By his prayer the bitter water lost its bitterness and became fit to drink, and the accounts say this sign moved many of the pagan inhabitants to embrace Christianity. Cyril is said to have lived to old age and to have been buried in Sicily.