By Jean Christou
THE GREEK Orthodox Church of Cyprus appears to be softening its stance towards the Cyprus issue with bishops reaching out a conciliatory hand to Turkish Cypriots in the run up to Easter.
Bishop Nikoforos of Kykkou, during his Palm Sunday sermon at the weekend sent a message of love and friendship to the Turkish Cypriots and called on them to cooperate for a free and peaceful Cyprus.
Two days before the sermon, the Bishop Neophytos of Morphou confessed to a Turkish Cypriot newspaper that the Cyprus Church was guilty of nationalism, that he listens to Turkish music and has volunteered to go and live in the north as an ‘experiment’.
In the interview with Yeni Duzen, the 42-year old Bishop, who last month called on Morphou refugees to donate blood for a little Turkish Cypriot girl, was quizzed over a remark he made previously that “nationalism is a sin and the Greek Cypriot Orthodox Church has committed this sin”.
“Nationalism is the worshipping of a nation. But in all religions we only worship God. We love our country of course but we do not worship our country,” he said. “So I feel that the Cypriot Church being a living organism has entered this adventure of nationalism as a temptation. In this process the church was being influenced by the environmental ‘currents’ and various currents coming from history.”
Admitting that Turkish Cypriots see the Greek Cypriot Church in a negative way because of its political leanings, Neophytou said the only Archbishop who was able to transcend this was Makarios because he moved away from the idea of Enosis to independence.
“But unfortunately nobody allowed this independence to work. Neither the Greek Cypriot nor the Turkish Cypriot nationals or the foreign powers allowed independence to survive. I come from a household where my father was singing Amanes (Ottoman music).
“The CDs I bought from England recently are mainly Turkish and Ottoman music, simply because I like it and not to make any political point in favour of rapprochement. Because of reasons of heart not because of ideology I listen to this music, not because I have to, but I love this music,” he said.
“In my home we never had these images of Turkish Cypriots as monsters but rather they are my friends. And in my later studies I concluded that Byzantium operated as a common bridge between the Greek and Turkish cultures. One of the monks in the monastery of Mavrovouni in Larnaca, where I was before I became a bishop, is learning Turkish. I sent him to learn Turkish…
“I am prophesising that by the time we have the next interview, this monk would have learnt Turkish and will have been promoted to the priesthood. His teacher is a Turkish Cypriot woman from England.”
Neophytou said that he and other Bishops had suggested to former President Glafcos Clerides that five other Greek Cypriots live in the north for a period of time as an experiment to show Turkish Cypriots that Cypriot bishops are not monsters.
“I’m 100 per cent sure that we’ll live together again. But we need time… And we shouldn’t do the same mistake that was done in Zurich… We have to find a solution that can function in the heart as well, not only on paper… I feel the state of Turkey is not ready to do this yet, the ‘Deep State’ of Turkey is not ready yet,” he said.
Neophytou said that the Zurich agreement that brought on Cyprus’ independence was a solution “for us without us”. “The elements of partition were rooted in this solution, it was not functionable actually,” he said. So it’s very simple for me: we have to find a solution that would work better than Zurich. So the key point of the role of the church is not to say if it’s pro-Annan or against Annan but to prepare the people for the coexistence after the solution and be a factor of coexistence and peace. The church has an important role to play after the solution.”
Identity was a problem; the Bishop said pointing out that neither Greek nor Turkish Cypriots cannot live together based on an agreement brought about by European money
“Once a wise man said that whoever knows where he came from, then he knows where he’s going to… There’s lack of knowledge about ourselves I believe, there is lack of knowledge of Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots of our identity… And the foreigners, the Europeans and the Americans they can see that. They ‘handle’ this, they ‘exploit’ this situation,” he said
“Nationalism is different from fundamentalism. Fundamentalism is more difficult, complicated then nationalism. That’s why the US is fighting against Iraq – it’s not only the oil of Mosul – the United States felt threatened by Islamic Iraq, that’s why US is fighting Iraq. And they feel this threat and in future always they will feel this threat. Dollars is the God of America.”
The Bishop also said that there were more similarities between Islam and Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy. “The Archbishop of Albania, Anastassios he wrote a very good book about Islam. I suggested to the Minister of Education that they should teach from this book at schools,” he said.
