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Military coup organised by the church?


Church in crisis: it’s an old tradition
By Constantine Markides
THE deadlock, or crisis as some may see it, within Church ranks regarding whether or not to declare the archbishopric throne vacant and open the way for elections is not without precedent, as the Church faced a major deadlock and in one case an ecclesiastical coup over the past century.

The escalating strife last year among the bishops over whether or not to hold archbishopric elections led to the November intervention of the Patriarch, who designated a Greater Synod for May 17-18 in Switzerland to finally settle whether elections should take place.

Georghious Theodoulou, author of the 2005 The Origins and Evolution of Church-State Relations in Cyprus with Special Reference to the Modern Era, told the Sunday Mail that a similar impasse over elections took place early last century, with the Patriarch even intervening.

At the turn of the twentieth century, elections took place to decide on who would be Archbishop between the island’s two bishops – Kyrilos II of Kition, a fierce supporter of Enosis with Greece, and the more moderate Kyrilos III of Kyrenia.

Theodoulou said that due to various differences between the two candidates, the elections were contested and the process came to a deadlock, which “took almost 10 years to settle and saw the involvement of the Patriarch and the British government, among others.”

After almost of a decade of a vacant throne, it was settled that the Kition bishop would take the throne, but he died after only three years of rule. The Kyrenia bishop was then elected and held the throne for over 20 years.

But the greatest ecclesiastical crisis in the history of Cyprus, according to Theodoulou, was the 1972-3 effort by three bishops – Paphos, Kitium and Kyrenia – demanding that Archbishop Makarios resign as President of the Republic.

“Never before in the history of Cyprus was there such an ecclesiastical conflict,” Theodoulou said, adding that it was the junta who persuaded the three bishops to stage an ecclesiastical coup.
Citing cannon laws stating that a cleric cannot hold secular office, the three bishops summoned Makarios to an extraordinary session of the Holy Synod to account for himself. Makarios refused to attend, calling the event unconstitutional. The three bishops convened anyway and decided to defrock Makarios.

Makarios then invited representatives from all the Orthodox Patriarchates to a Greater Synod that convened on July 6 and 7, 1973, where it was decided to annul Makarios’ defrocking. After the three bishops failed to appear at a later Synod to account for their actions, the three were defrocked.

They briefly reappeared on the scene after the 1974 military coup that overthrew Makarios. Nicos Sampson, who was appointed ‘President’ by the coup leaders, installed Paphos Bishop Gennadios as Archbishop. But the stay in power was short-lived as Makarios was returned as President and Archbishop of the Republic in December 1974 and the bishops were dethroned for conspiracy.

Theodoulou’s detailed and lucid The Origin and Evolution of Church-State Relations in Cyprus places special emphasis on Makarios and on the events around the 1974 invasion, and includes appendices of several of Makarios’ speeches and letters. Theodoulou calls Makarios a “prisoner of history” who was playing two roles that were always in conflict – President and Ethnarch.
Theodoulou claims, however, that since the death of Makarios, Church/State relations have greatly weakened. In his view, the Church no longer wields real political power, though it still wield tremendous economic force from its property and investments, being the “biggest landlord in Cyprus, owning hotels, banks, factories, everything”.

Theodoulou emphasised that the Church was “more powerful under the Ottoman period than it is now”, with the Sultan issuing a Berat, an official document, that gave the Church sweeping powers and privileges.

It was the British, who tried to minimise the power of the Church by making changes and abolishing privileges because they found a system in which the Church wielded administrative powers to be “alien to them and did not conform to Western modes of administration”.

On the inside flap of the Theodoulou’s book is a quote by John Climacus, a 6th century abbot of Mt. Sinai monastery: “Whatever sins we blame others for, we fall in them ourselves. That is certain.”

Theodoulou said he included this quote because he feels that “we Cypriots today and in the past “blame the others for all our misfortunes but never ourselves” and as a result have bad relations with powers like the US, Britain and even the United Nations, which only hinders a solution to the Cyprus problem.

n The Origins and evolution of Church-State relations in Cyprus with special reference to the modern era by Georghios Theodoulou, M.A., M.Th.

ANOTHER book dealing with the history of the church in Cyprus is Archbishopric Elections in Cyprus: a historic retrospect of the 20th century by Marinos Frixou Kleanthous. Speaking at the book launch earlier this week, House President Demetris Christofias said that the “elections for a new Archbishop are an important step to face the problems the Church deals with today.” The book takes a look at the various Church deadlocks and crises, including the 1900-1909 election impasse and the 1972 ecclesiastical coup.


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