‘Throw away the history books’

THE LEADER of the Orthodox flock in Cyprus will ask school children to throw away their history books if he feels they have been distorted, the primate warned yesterday.

Asked to comment on the Education Ministry’s efforts to revise and update school books, some of which have been in circulation for near three decades, Archbishop Chrysostomos II told reporters that the Church would not tolerate distortion of the truth.

“The Church has a clear position on this. We will not allow the distortion of history,” he said.

The Archbishop went so far as to say he would encourage children to throw away their books if the Church did not approve of them.

“We will stand firm to the point where we will even call on the children to throw away such books that have distorted the history of our country,” said Archbishop Chrysostomos.

“The people are looking at us, listening to us and judging us all,” replied Government Spokesman Stefanos Stefanou.

The spokesman said the Archbishop was stuck on a non-issue, since the government was not responsible for education reform.

The committee for reform of the syllabus, headed by an esteemed academic, was responsible, clarified Stefanou.

From there on, any changes will be subject to discussion and consensus before any new books are given to the schools, he added.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.