148 Coureas
Wilbrand of Oldenburg, who visited Cyprus in 1211, stated that 13 Greek bish-
ops, including one archbishop, existed on the island, an indication that one
of the original 14 Greek bishoprics had by then ceased to exist, although it is
not known which one. Furthermore, one observes that the cities of Byzantine
Cyprus numbered from 13 to 15, as some rose to prominence and declined with
the passage of time, so the number of 14 bishoprics in Byzantine Cyprus is not
absolutely certain.9
The recently established Latin Church became more interventionist towards
its Greek counterpart in Cyprus in the years 1220 and 1223, when agreements
regulating the relations of the Cypriot Latin Church with the crown and the
nobility were concluded at Limassol and then ratified by Pope Honorius iii.
The agreements also affected the Greek Church, even though it had not been
party to them, especially as regarded the episcopal structure. Pope Honorius iii
desired the abolition of all Greek bishoprics in Cyprus, an objective opposed
by Queen Alice, who feared the unrest this might cause. The Greek Church
was not party to the agreements of these years, which the Lusignan crown, the
Latin secular Church and the Latin military orders reached with the assistance
of the papal legate Cardinal Pelagius of Albano, with final confirmation given
by the pope. They provided for the retention of only four Greek bishops, each of
whom was to reside in a remote locality within the diocese of the Latin dioce-
san he was jurisdictionally subject to. These bishops were bishops in name only
inasmuch as they lacked full episcopal powers. They had no territorial jurisdic-
tion, a vital prerequisite for them to be considered bishops pleno iure, simply
exercising spiritual jurisdiction over the Greek regular and secular clergy and
the Greek laity within the dioceses of their Latin diocesans. Furthermore, the
Latin diocesans could annul their elections if they considered them uncanoni-
cal and could conduct visitations at fixed times of the year.10 These provisions
were added, confirmed and articulated more expressly in the 1260 agreement
concluded in Rome under Pope Alexander iv and known as the Bulla Cypria,
which regulated relations between the Latin and Greek Churches in Cyprus
until the Ottoman conquest of 1570.11
9 Claude D. Cobham, ed. and trans., Excerpta Cypria: Materials for a History of Cyprus
(Cambridge, 1908), p. 13; George Hill, A History of Cyprus, 4 vols. (Cambridge, 1940–1952),
1:262–71; Pierre-Vincent Claverie, Honorius iii et l’Orient (1216–1227) (Leiden, 2013), p. 211.
10 Coureas and Schabel, Cartulary, nos. 82–86; Coureas, Latin Church 1195–1312, pp. 259–80;
Claverie, Honorius iii, pp. 212–13.
11 Coureas and Schabel, Cartulary, no. 78; Christopher Schabel, trans., The Synodicum
Nicosiense and Other Documents of the Latin Church of Cyprus, 1196–1373 (Nicosia, 2001),
pp. 311–20.