A council of forty-seven bishops was assembled to depose him, supported by a Muslim overseer of an orchard called Yaseeb.
Because of the Pope's words, it is claimed, the governor became enraged with the overseer, and beheaded him at the same place and at the same time as the matonia had been performed.
Cyril II moved the seat of the patriarchate to the Hanging Church in Cairo in the eleventh century.
Although at first warmly welcomed when he reached Ethiopia, the Caliph's candidate began to openly favor Islam in that Christian country by building seven mosques, ostensibly for the use of Muslim traders.
Abuna Sawiros justified his acts by saying a refusal to build these mosques would result in a persecution in Egypt.