Cyril II of Jerusalem (original name Konstantinos Kritikos) was born in 1792 in the island of Samos. In 1816 he was ordained a deacon, then a presbyter, was abbot of the monastery. In 1835 he became Archbishop of Sebasteia and in 1838 of Lydia. In 1845 he was elected as the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem under the name Cyril II (1846–1872) by the Hagiotaphites (Confraternity of the Holy Sepulchre) and remains to 1872. On 28 February 1870, Sultan Abdülaziz I signed a firman which created the Bulgarian Exarchate subjectеd to the Ecumenical Patriarchate but yet as a representative of the Bulgarian millet in the Ottoman Empire. Cyril II participated in the Council in Constantinople, chaired by Ecumenical Patriarch Anthimus VI, in September 1872, wherein the Patriarchs of Alexandria and