Head of the Church of Cyprus declares the need to resist Turkish occupation

The Primate of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, Archbishop George, has called for a national awakening on the Cyprus problem. In his Christmas message, he recalled the value of freedom and the need for unity and resistance to the Turkish occupation. This is reported by orthodoxtimes.gr.

“For fifty years now, we in Cyprus have been brutally deprived of freedom. Despite the goodwill shown by us and compliance with security rules, the occupying power persistently seeks to achieve its senseless goals — the occupation and Turkification of the whole of Cyprus. […] In addition to the fact that we, as Christians, are obliged to defend our freedom and dignity, striving with all our might to free ourselves from the occupation and liberate our homeland, we also have a duty to our nationality. Greeks have been living in Cyprus for 35 centuries. We cannot ignore this historical course by contributing to the Turkification of the country through our negligence or inefficiency. We believe that we have not fully realized the seriousness of the danger that threatens us, and therefore we are not handling the situation properly. Unfortunately, our side is mired in the search for a solution based on the logic that the Greeks of Cyprus do not have the right to live within a modern state in conditions of freedom and respect for human rights. This is because we consider Turkey to be powerful and agree that we will have to make constant concessions to appease it. But the result of such a course is also obvious, and it is nothing less than the Turkishization of the whole of Cyprus,” — the message says.

Archbishop George added that Cypriots should get rid of “imposed illusions” because the previous 50 years of occupation and the policies pursued during this period have led Turkey to come close to actually seizing the whole of Cyprus.

“We are appealing to everyone again: The governments of Greece and Cyprus, all political forces in Greece and Cyprus, and the people. Part of the nation is in the greatest danger. It is necessary, bearing responsibility to history and our ancestors, to face the situation and plan for the future. Our planning should not have a horizon of four or five years, as in the next election, but into eternity. Such a plan should leave no room for Turkey’s silly ambitions to be imposed on Cyprus. It should be a program that is defined by the enduring values of our faith and race, defined by 35 centuries of our Greek presence in Cyprus, and aims at the liberation of our homeland. The first and most urgent necessity is to get rid of the illusion that any movement, even verbal, around the Cyprus problem contributes to its effective resolution. The 50-year experiment has shown the ineffectiveness of the process of intercommunal negotiations. We must all together rethink our problem as a problem of invasion and occupation and look for solutions under this prism,” — the archbishop added.