Greek Archbishop-ethnarchs consistently asserted the Church's role and its co-option by the state to maintain a privileged position and hold political, social, and economic hegemony. Across the last 250 years, all archbishops-ethnarchs endeavoured to dominate the politics, society and economics of the island.[1] During Ottoman times, they collaborated with the Ottoman imperial centre and its officers in the periphery to maintain their political, social, and economic power on the island.[2] For their part, “the Ottomans saw in the Orthodox Church an institution that could provide a ready-made administrative machine, suitable for both political and fiscal administration, and a structured hierarchy through which even remote communities were within easy reach.”[3] Therefore, the Orthodox Archbishops of Cyprus were given ecclesiastical and lay jurisdiction over the Eastern Orthodox Christian population of the island. They were authorized to control and tax their subjects.
Members of the Orthodox Church remembered their oppression during centuries of Catholic rule. They retaliated against the Maronites by confiscating their churches and accusing their clergy of collaborating with the return of Venetian rule. This led successive Maronite bishops to abandon the island and some Maronites to convert to Islam. Following the issuing of the firman in 1848, the Maronite bishop Youssef Geagea (1844-1882) arrived on the island over 150 years after the last Maronite bishop resided in Cyprus.
In 1878, the Ottomans placed the island into the hands of Great Britain for administrative purposes under a secret leasing agreement (Cyprus Convention). In return, “Great Britain pledged her assistance to Turkey should Russia attack the Asiatic possessions of the Ottomans.”[4] During the British era[5], however, the new favourable conditions facilitated the demographic growth of the Maronite community and helped improve the quality of their life.
The 1974 Turkish military invasion and the subsequent occupation of 37% of the island, which resulted in the forced expulsion of 200,000 Greek Cypriots from their homes and their possessions, had devastating consequences for the Maronite community of Cyprus. The Maronites were faced with the serious problem of preserving their cultural and religious identity and were subjected to the “Turkish Government's systematic policy of ethnic cleansing and Turkification.”[6] Four Maronite villages (Asomatos, Ayia Marina, Karpasha and KOrmakitis) fell under military occupation. The village of Ayia Marina was converted into a military base by Turkish occupation, and its inhabitants are still denied access to their houses and churches. The Prophet Elias Monastery was bombed during the second phase of the 1974 invasion and sustained serious damage. The village Asomatos was transferred into a military camp for the Turkish occupying forces and its inhabitants are only allowed to enter the village on Sundays, exclusively for the celebration of the Holy Mass. The Virgin Mary chapel in Marki is ruined. In 1988, the seat of the Archbishopric returned to Nicosia. The Maronites supported the Annan Plan, which recommended their right to return to their villages in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Similarly, the Armenians voted favourably for the Annan Plan because they cherish good memories of their relationships with the Turkish-Cypriot community with whom they cohabited in the same quarters until 1963 and still have properties in the TRNC or on the Green Line that they hope to recover.
[1] Andrekos Varnava & Michalis N. Michael. “Archbishop-Ethnarchs since 1767” (Chapter one), in Andrekos Varnava & Michalis N. Michael (eds.) The Archbishops of Cyprus in the Modern Age: The Changing Role of the Archbishop-Ethnarch, their Identities and Politics, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle (UK), 2013, p. 14.
[2] Ibid., p. 15.
[3] Guita G. Hourani. “The Maronites of Cyprus under Ottoman Rule”, p. 117.
[4] George A. Papacostas & Christina G. Papacostas. “Cyprus in Geopolitics”, in Journal of Geography (University of Jabalpur), Vol. IV (May 1973), p. 46.
[5] The British military occupation of Cyprus began in July 1878 when the island became a British protectorate. In 1914, they annexed Cyprus after declaring the leasing agreement invalid as a reaction to the Ottomans joining World War I against Britain and allying with the Germans. In 1923, Turkey ceased to claim its legal rights over Cyprus as part of the provisions of the Treaty of Lausanne, and in 1925, the British Government proclaimed it a British Crown Colony, a status which lasted until 1960. They intended to protect and develop the island while instilling a sense of “Britishness,” hoping it would remain under British control as a colonial dependency and become British. After 1960, although abandoned by Britain, Cyprus remained a member of the British Commonwealth.
[6] Andrekos Varnava. “The Maronite Community of Cyprus: Past, Present and Future”, in Al-Mashriq, Vol. 1, No. 2, Importance of Cyprus
September 2002, P. 65.