In the aftermath of political shifts in the mid seventh century and afterwards, hagiography in Cyprus declined. However, a ninth-century revival reconnected the island to Constantinople through narratives of saints who visited Cyprus. The Life of St Demetrianos of Kythrea (BHG 495) stands out as the only hagiographical text with a clearly Cypriot identity in the Middle Byzantine period, blending erudition and rhetoric to underscore the saint’s asceticism and, once he was consecrated bishop, his local impact in Cyprus. All these elements imply the existence of an intellectual circle in Cyprus, perhaps restricted to clerics, which must have appreciated the value of such a rhetorical text and considered it worthy of a local saint.