Conversion and Early Ministry
By the time of his conversion Cyprian had already attained a high position in the metropolis of Africa as a public speaker, legal advocate, and teacher of rhetoric. He came to Christianity around 245–246, disillusioned with the corruption and excess of his earlier life and guided by an elderly priest. He described his baptism as a liberating and transformative experience.
Committing himself to celibacy while still a catechumen, he sold his property and gave a large portion of his wealth to the poor. He was rapidly ordained deacon and then priest, and within a few years was elected Bishop of Carthage, a choice especially welcomed among the poor though resisted by some senior clergy.
The Lapsed and Church Discipline
The Decian persecution of 250 produced large numbers of lapsi, Christians who had sacrificed or otherwise complied under pressure. Cyprian's own withdrawal into hiding during the persecution drew criticism, but from concealment he continued to direct the discipline of his church.
On his return he set out his position in the treatise De Lapsis and convened a council of North African bishops at Carthage. He steered a middle course between the laxer party associated with Novatus of Carthage and the rigorism of the Roman antipope Novatian, who held that the lapsed could never be readmitted. Against this he supported Pope Cornelius and argued for the eventual restoration of the fallen through penance once persecution had ended. His pastoral devotion during a severe plague and famine further strengthened his standing among the faithful.
Writings and Theology
Cyprian was one of the most influential of the early Latin Fathers, and his style was praised as rarely equalled among them. His best-known work, De Ecclesiae Catholicae Unitate (On the Unity of the Catholic Church), defends the unity of the Church and the role of its bishops, written amid the controversies over the lapsed and schism.
His surviving output includes Ad Donatum, which recounts his own conversion; the scriptural Testimonia ad Quirinum; De Lapsis; and treatises on the Lord's Prayer, on mortality, on almsgiving, and on martyrdom. Around sixty to eighty of his letters survive. In a dispute with Pope Stephen I he also argued that baptisms administered by heretics were invalid, against the Roman practice of merely laying hands on converts from heresy.
Martyrdom
The renewed persecution under Emperor Valerian, beginning in 256, brought Cyprian before the proconsul Aspasius Paternus on 30 August 257. When he refused to sacrifice to the pagan deities he was banished to Curubis, identified with modern Korba in Tunisia.
A year later a harsher edict required the execution of clergy. He was imprisoned on 13 September 258 by order of the proconsul Galerius Maximus and, after his trial the following day, was beheaded by the sword in the suburbs of Carthage on 14 September 258. By the surviving accounts he removed his garments, knelt, and prayed before the execution, and a vast multitude of the faithful accompanied him.
Relics & Shrines
Churches were erected over Cyprian's tomb and over the place of his martyrdom. The brethren are said to have borne his body with candles and torches, with prayer and great triumph, to the cemetery of Macrobius Candidianus.
By later tradition Charlemagne transferred his bones to France. Several cities — among them Lyon, Arles, Venice, Compiègne, and Roenay in Flanders — have claimed to hold portions of his relics.
Veneration
The Eastern Orthodox Church venerates Cyprian as a hieromartyr — a bishop who died for the faith — and commemorates him on August 31. He is counted among the pre-schism Western (North African) saints honored as Orthodox.
