The Finding of the Cross
According to tradition, Judas possessed knowledge of the location of the Cross at Golgotha, an inheritance passed down through his family line, which he disclosed under torture when Helen sought it. The oldest surviving Syriac account of this discovery dates to approximately 500 AD.
After pointing out the place where the Life-Creating Cross lay buried and witnessing its recovery, he sincerely embraced faith in Christ and was received into the Church through baptism, taking the name Kyriakos. The fifth-century historian Sozomen (died c. 450) recorded accounts of the discovery in his Ecclesiastical History, noting a tradition that 'a dead person was also revived by the touch of the Cross.'
Episcopate and Martyrdom
Following his conversion and ordination, Cyriacus was made Bishop, or Patriarch, of Jerusalem. The Orthodox tradition attributes his selection to his pure and virtuous life.
He was martyred during the persecution under Julian the Apostate. Sources place his death around 360, with the Orthodox synaxarion dating his suffering to 363. Accounts describe him in dialogue with the emperor and suffering severe torments, in some narratives alongside his mother, named Anna. He was killed after prolonged tortures.
Relics & Shrines
By tradition the Empress Galla Placidia presented the city of Ancona, Italy, with his relics, and Cyriacus is honored as the patron saint of Ancona. The Cathedral of San Ciriaco on Monte Guasco in Ancona, said to occupy the site of an ancient temple of Venus, holds his body, which remains visible in his tomb. Construction of the Romanesque cathedral, built of grey stone in the form of a Greek cross with a dodecagonal dome, began in 1128 and was completed in 1189.
His head was reported to have been housed at Provins in France, where Henry I of Champagne established a collegiate church to contain it.
Identity and Disambiguation
The saint commemorated on October 28 is the fourth-century figure associated with the finding of the True Cross and martyred under Julian. He is often misidentified with a separate Cyriacus of Jerusalem, a bishop who, according to a stub tradition, died around 133 AD during a riot. The two are distinct persons.
Cyriacus is also known under several names and epithets, including Judas Cyriacus, Cyriacus of Ancona, Quiriacus, and Kyriakos.
