On July 9 Cyprus honours the memory of clergy and laymen who were put to a violent death by the Turks in 1821 as suspects of involvement in the Panhellenic uprising. This year marks the bicentenary of that event.
In 1821 commander Küçük Mehmed brought to the island Turkish troops to prevent the uprising of the Greeks of Cyprus, many of whom had been initiated in the Society of Friends. Archbishop Kyprianos of Cyprus, three Bishops, all the Hegumens of the Orthodox Monasteries as well as hundreds of notables and prominent citizens were hanged or decapitated in Nicosia in those hot days of July.
It is worth mentioning that in his youth Archbishop Kyprianos was a monk in the historic Monastery of BVM of Machairas. In his capacity of Archbishop in 1821 he founded the Greek School of Nicosia, in which he saw to it that there be the following inscription: “Die for the faith and fight for the fatherland!”.
Photograph:
Ghiorgos Mavroghenis, “The arrest of Archbishop Kyprianos” (1971), Gallery of the “Archbishop Makarios III” Cultural Foundation.
