IT IS EXTREMELY difficult to take this week’s public row between Archbishop Chrysostomos and President Christofias seriously, even though it has been given great prominence by the media. Admittedly, it was a slow week for news and journalists were more than happy to blow this routine exchange out of proportion, warning that national unity was at stake a few days before peace talks were due to start.
The media seized the president’s angry reaction to the speech made by the Bishop of Paphos, on behalf of the Archbishop, at last week’s conference for overseas Cypriots in Nicosia and turned it into a Church versus State issue. The Bishop criticised Christofias’ handling of the peace process and accused him of allowing the Turkish occupation to be treated as a bi-communal dispute. He also castigated the government’s decision to allow Turkish Cypriots to cross the Republic-controlled area to go to Limnitis on August 8.
The truth is that the bishop had said nothing that had not been said before, either by newspaper columnists or politicians. It is the standard criticism directed at Christofias by the hard-liners who are opposed to a federal settlement and he should have learnt to live with it by now. By losing his temper, as he had done on Tuesday evening, and attacking the Church he was merely helping the media make an issue out of an exchange totally lacking in newsworthiness.
The president did not need to point out that the Republic “is not a theocratic state” nor did he need to remind the Archbishop what is self-evident – that the head of the government was elected to represent the people and that the Church had no role to play. Comments about the patriotic platitudes voiced by the Church leading us to the brink of disaster may have been correct but were unnecessary, as they served to stoke up the flames of confrontation.
The best policy for Christofias is to ignore the Archbishop’s ranting and raving about the peace talks. By responding every time Chrysostomos says something he is giving credence to his views and indirectly conceding that the Church has a role to play in politics when it clearly does not. Of course the Archbishop has the right to express his views about the national issue, but he has as much right to be given a response by the government as the man on the street. Chrysostomos’ predecessor also liked to make fiery patriotic speeches, but these were ignored by the government and their impact was negligible.
The current Archbishop has behaved so shabbily over the years that very few people take his utterances seriously. An opinion poll published in July showed that 63 per cent of the people did not approve of the way he was behaving in relation to the Cyprus problem. Only 26 per cent approved, which is the proportion of the population that is opposed to a settlement. In other words, Chrysostomos is merely preaching to the converted, and should not be seen as threat to the peace procedure by Christofias and his associates. A quarter of the population would be opposed to the peace process, irrespective of what the Archbishop said.
The fact is that the Church has been politically marginalised since Christofias’ election and is desperately trying to keep the political role it had in the past. It is in this context that the hard-line rhetoric and continual attacks on the president should be viewed. Whereas in the past the president deferred to the Archbishop on some issues – like the appointment of education minister – Christofias, correctly, has refused to go down this path. As a consequence, he is guaranteed the hostility of the high-ranking priests who long for the days when the Church was calling the shots from behind the scenes with disastrous results for the country.
Thankfully, those days are over for good, even though the Archbishop is unlikely to give up his traditional political role without a fight. Christofias would do well to ignore him and the bishops whenever they resort to the hackneyed patriotic rhetoric of the past.
