Cyprus-Forum.com

[Lordo]

This year they have a new recruit.

As to Turkey being scared, of what exactly?

Who wishes to join a bankrupt organization in recession. Grow up.

[kimon07]

Sad thing about these imposters, they ORIGINATE from Cyprus.
They're legitimate citizens according to the RoC.

How right you are Cap. If only we were treated as such we may have had the same enthusiasm as you with regards to RoC's EU presidency. If you stooped calling us Ottoman remnants and if you treated us as equals we wouldn't even be having this discussion.

I don't remember anyone calling TCs Ottoman remnants. On the contrary, some forum members are using this term for Greeks of Greece.
It's the Anatolian settlers that some of us (especially me) call neo Ottomans and/or Mongols. Don't forget. If I am not wrong, most GC forum members believe that most TCs have a Christian descent (Greek or Armenian).

[supporttheunderdog]

a balanced comment Kimon: I have a feeling that if anything the christian element could be latins who enjoyed power and prestige under the Lusignans amd Venetians. but who lost privilge under the Ottomans when the Orthodox church began to assume preeminance, and who adopted the Moslem faith and Turkish language to maintain an element of prestige and the benefits not enoyed by the Christian population ie lower taxes, exemption from military service, etc.

[kimon07]

a balanced comment Kimon: I have a feeling that if anything the christian element could be latins who enjoyed power and prestige under the Lusignans amd Venetians. but who lost privilge under the Ottomans when the Orthodox church began to assume preeminance, and who adopted the Moslem faith and Turkish language to maintain an element of prestige and the benefits not enoyed by the Christian population ie lower taxes, exemption from military service, etc.

Can not comment anything in regard to the Latin element but on the other hand, there are many records and reports about the "Linopambakoi" i.e., the Greek Cypriots who converted to Islam. For instance, in the registries of many "enories" (church districts) all over the island, in which the Christian families were being recorded (as even today) you will find entries or rather "write offs" of whole families with the note: "Eturkepsan" meaning they turned Turkish. Most of them tried to convert back to Christianity when the British took over but the Church would not accept them back lest they would "contaminate" the Christian community.

[bill cobbett]

a balanced comment Kimon: I have a feeling that if anything the christian element could be latins who enjoyed power and prestige under the Lusignans amd Venetians. but who lost privilge under the Ottomans when the Orthodox church began to assume preeminance, and who adopted the Moslem faith and Turkish language to maintain an element of prestige and the benefits not enoyed by the Christian population ie lower taxes, exemption from military service, etc.

Can not comment anything in regard to the Latin element but on the other hand, there are many records and reports about the "Linopambakoi" i.e., the Greek Cypriots who converted to Islam. For instance, in the registries of many "enories" (church districts) all over the island, in which the Christian families were being recorded (as even today) you will find entries or rather "write offs" of whole families with the note: "Eturkepsan" meaning they turned Turkish. Most of them tried to convert back to Christianity when the British took over but the Church would not accept them back lest they would "contaminate" the Christian community.

Very interesting Kimon. Naturally am familiar with the word "enories" but didn't know it relates to church districts and so equates to the English word "parish".

[kimon07]

a balanced comment Kimon: I have a feeling that if anything the christian element could be latins who enjoyed power and prestige under the Lusignans amd Venetians. but who lost privilge under the Ottomans when the Orthodox church began to assume preeminance, and who adopted the Moslem faith and Turkish language to maintain an element of prestige and the benefits not enoyed by the Christian population ie lower taxes, exemption from military service, etc.

Can not comment anything in regard to the Latin element but on the other hand, there are many records and reports about the "Linopambakoi" i.e., the Greek Cypriots who converted to Islam. For instance, in the registries of many "enories" (church districts) all over the island, in which the Christian families were being recorded (as even today) you will find entries or rather "write offs" of whole families with the note: "Eturkepsan" meaning they turned Turkish. Most of them tried to convert back to Christianity when the British took over but the Church would not accept them back lest they would "contaminate" the Christian community.

Very interesting Kimon. Naturally am familiar with the word "enories" but didn't know it relates to church districts and so equates to the English word "parish".

Right. Am registered in the Enoria of Trypiotis, Nicosia.

[kimon07]

a balanced comment Kimon: I have a feeling that if anything the christian element could be latins who enjoyed power and prestige under the Lusignans amd Venetians. but who lost privilge under the Ottomans when the Orthodox church began to assume preeminance, and who adopted the Moslem faith and Turkish language to maintain an element of prestige and the benefits not enoyed by the Christian population ie lower taxes, exemption from military service, etc.

The Latin community (Part 2)

(Google Translation from Greek with a few improvements by me)

……………………….

In 1571, the island's occupation by the Ottomans and the Latins were forced to convert to Islam or to become Orthodox, and many of them were victims of massacres or abandoned island.

The Latins who embraced Islam were called the Linopampakoi, while the Latin persecution continued until 1652, year of establishment of the first European consulates in Cyprus. Under the protection of such consulates, the Latins and the Franciscans organized as a community, build a church in Nicosia (the Holy Cross) Monastery and Larnaca, as the churches and abbeys were destroyed by the Turks.

Most Latins who had convert to Islam returned to the Catholic faith, especially in Larnaca, where due to the consulates conditions were more liberal. Having become active again thanks to the establishment of the European consulates, the Latins of Cyprus begin to grow in numbers, reaching 824 in 1901 , and 951 in 1921, while touching on 4505 1960. Of these, 1,709 were of English origin, the others being of Mediterranean origins, while a number of Maltese was added. They are known to us as Levantines or Francolevantinoi, who, around the late 18th and early 19th century, dealing mainly with the trades and taking active part in political, cultural, economic and social life of the island, formed the elite of the city. At the same time members of the Order of St. Joseph and Franciscans arrived and settled.



See the whole article:

http://www.typos.com.cy/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=6457

[kimon07]

English Summary
Of the essay of Kyriakos Hatziioannou titled:

" The descent of the Turkish Cypriots and the Cyprus Problem".
(Unfortunately the full text (link below) which is a treasure of well documented information is in Greek only).

The author of this paper maintains that the Turkish Cypriots are, in their large majority Greeks, who passed through a cryptochristian stage to Islam, during the Turkish occupation of Cyprus (1571 – 1878), hoping to avoid turkish oppression. Later on, a great number of them accepted turkish nationality and the rest either returned to Christianity or remained Cryptochristians (Linobambaki).
This view is supported by (a) historical data, which he quotes, (b) by the evidence of religious rituals belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, which the Turkish Cypriots used to perform secretly, and which a number of them are still performing this day, and (c) by the fact that they used to speak only Greek and some of them do so even now. For this reason the turkish and Greek Cypriots, aware of their common ancestry, used to live in harmony and were happy.
This fact, in the author’s view made Ankara intervene and disrupt those harmonious relations. Later on, after having found a pretext, turkey invaded Cyprus, occupied the north of it and drove the Greek Cypriots from their homes in this area. Soon afterwards, Turkey uprooted the turkish Cypriots from their homes in the south of Cyprus by promises or by threats and settled them in the north, with a view to turkizing them and so turning a part of Cyprus into a province of Turkey.
The author concludes that, therefore, the turks of turkey are foreign to the turkish Cypriots, not only from the view point that they belong to a foreign country, but also from an ethnological point of view. The Republic of Cyprus should declare this fact to the world and campaign for help to unify the people of Cyprus by resettling them in their homes. They should be left undistrurbed, without any foreign intervention, enabled to live again in harmony and happiness in their own homes and on their own land, as before.
Kyriacos Hadjioannou
Kefallenias str. 15
Limassol (Cyprus)
May 1976

http://www.lykionellinidon.org.cy/likei ... iprion.pdf

[kimon07]

Very interesting Kimon. Naturally am familiar with the word "enories" but didn't know it relates to church districts and so equates to the English word "parish".

I suppose that the role of the English parishes is strictly religious, while the role of the Church of Cyprus and its “enories”, historically and traditionally extended to even the administration of the Greek Orthodox community, the collection of revenues and other secular activities. That is why the Church was keeping very detailed records of the members of the “enories”.

The quotes below will help in understanding the strong influence of the Church of Cyprus on the Greek Cypriot society.

Although their homeland had been dominated by foreigners for many centuries, it was only after the imposition of Ottoman rule that Orthodox Christians began to develop a really strong sense of cohesiveness. This change was prompted by the Ottoman practice of ruling the empire through millets, or religious communities.
Rather than suppressing the empire's many religious communities, the Turks allowed them a degree of automony as long as they complied with the demands of the sultan. The vast size and the ethnic variety of the empire made such a policy imperative. The system of governing through millets reestablished the authority of the Church of Cyprus and made its head the Greek Cypriot leader, or ethnarch. It became the responsibility of the ethnarch to administer the territories where his flock lived and to collect taxes. The religious convictions and functions of the ethnarch were of no concern to the empire as long as its needs were met.In 1575 the Turks granted permission for the return of the archbishop and the three bishops of the Church of Cyprus to their respective sees. They also abolished the feudal system for they saw it as an extraneous power structure, unnecessary and dangerous. The autocephalous Church of Cyprus could function in its place for the political and fiscal administration of the island's Christian inhabitants. Its structured hierarchy put even remote villages within easy reach of the central authority. Both parties benefited. Greek Cypriots gained a measure of autonomy, and the empire received revenues without the bother of administration.

http://historymedren.about.com/library/ ... yprus5.htm


And:

The Ottoman conquest of Cyprus in 1571 delivered the Greek population from serfdom and servitude to the Latin church. Cypriot Greeks were now able to take control of the land they had been working on for centuries. The local Christians resumed practicing their religion in the only acceptable way they knew. The patriarch serving the Ottoman sultan also acted as ethnarch, or leader of the Greek nation, thus enabling the local Orthodox representative to practice decidedly secular powers, for instance in adjudicating justice and in the collection of taxes.

Despite the inherent oppression of foreign subjugation, the period of Ottoman rule (1570-1878) had a limited impact on Greek Cypriot culture. The Ottomans tended to administer their multicultural empire with the help of their subject millets, or religious communities. The tolerance of the millet system permitted the Greek Cypriot community to survive, administered on behalf of Constantinople by the Archbishop of the Church of Cyprus, who became the community's head, or ethnarch. Although religiously tolerant, Ottoman rule was generally harsh and inefficient. Turkish settlers suffered alongside their Greek Cypriot neighbors, and the two groups together endured centuries of oppressive governance from Constantinople. A minority of Greek Cypriots converted to Islam during this period, and are sometimes referred to as "neo-Muslims" by historians.[9][10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_Cypriots

[Viewpoint]

Yeah yeah. you are what you feel today not what happened a zillion years ago, if you wish to join any faith your are free to do whats the benefit of challenging peoples religious beliefs, what matters is their current psychology when dealing with each other. Its is clear in Cyprus that one community (GC) want to dominate the other and the other (TC) is doing everything it can to stop this.