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→Life: corrected date of Synod of Jerusalem
In 1753 the Patriarch Cyril Lukaris opened a school of thought called "Athoniada" at [[Mount Athos]], but the Orthodox and Catholics insisted to the Turkish authorities that this should be closed. In 1759 the Athos School was closed. The next option was to send students abroad to study, as long as it was not Catholic thought. The Calvinists were appealing because their beliefs were very similar to Orthodox ones.
It is alleged that the great aim of his life was to reform the Church on [[Calvinism|Calvinistic]] lines, and to this end he sent many young Greek theologians to the universities of Switzerland, the northern Netherlands and England. In 1629 he published his famous ''Confessio'' (Calvinistic in doctrine), but as far as possible accommodated to the language and creeds of the Orthodox Church. It appeared the same year in two Latin editions, four French, one German and one English, and in the Eastern Church started a controversy which culminated in 1691 1672 in the convocation by [[Dositheos II of Jerusalem|Dositheos]], [[Patriarch of Jerusalem]], of a [[synod]] by which the Calvinistic doctrines were condemned.
Cyril was also particularly well disposed towards the Anglican Church, and his correspondence with the [[Archbishop of Canterbury|Archbishops of Canterbury]] is extremely interesting. It was in his time that Mitrophanis Kritopoulos—later to become Patriarch of Alexandria (1636-1639)—was sent to England to study. Both Lucaris and Kritopoulos were lovers of books and manuscripts, and acquired manuscripts that today adorn the Patriarchal Library.
