He was the fourteenth metropolitan in Moscow to be appointed without the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople as had been the norm.
[1][2] During Cyril's term, Ivan the Terrible's fierceness reached its climax.
[3] In 1571, a Crimean khan Devlet I Giray attacked Moscow and ravaged the city.
[4] Metropolitan Cyril had to hide in the Cathedral of the Dormition in the Moscow Kremlin to avoid death.
Metropolitan Cyril died on 8 February 1572,[5] and was interred at the Novinsky Monastery.