RELIGION IN CYPRUS
The major religion of the Greek Cypriot population is Greek Orthodox.
There are also the smaller religious groups of Muslims, the Anglicans, Roman and Latin Christians, Maronites, Armenian Orthodox, Greek Evangelics, Jews and others including New Life International Church Cyprus (Community of Hope), Seventh-Day Adventist Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Religion – as epitomised by the Orthodox Church across many centuries – is very firmly woven into the fabric of Cyprus society reflecting its power, influence and dominance in the life of the country. This contrasts with the UK, where diverse religious creeds are arguably in greater competition with each other for the religious affiliations of its people.
The religious practices of the Cypriot Orthodox Church compare and contrast significantly to those found within the diverse communities of the broadly Christian type churches of the UK. The service does not use a choir. The balcony, or choir loft, found in most churches is reserved for women and is called the ginekonitis. On the ground level of the church, men usually also sit on one side and women on the other.
The Church of Cyprus is an autocephalous church in the Orthodox tradition using the liturgy of mainland Greece. It recognized the seniority and prestige of the ecumenical patriarch in Constantinople, while retaining complete administrative autonomy under its own archbishop. The Great Schism, as the split between Catholic and Orthodox became known, had major consequences for the Church of Cyprus. Under Lusignan and Venetian rule, the Church of Cyprus was pressured to recognize the authority of the Roman pope. The imposed Roman hierarchy attempted to remould the Church of Cyprus in the image of the Western church. Under the Muslim Ottomans, Cypriots were no longer considered schismatics, but merely unbelievers and followers of an inferior religion.
As such they were allowed considerable autonomy, and the archbishop was the officially recognized secular as well as religious leader of his community
Under British rule there was an attempt to secularize all public institutions, but this move was bitterly opposed by church authorities, who used the conflict with the state to gain leadership of the Greek nationalist movement against colonial rule. At independence Archbishop Makarios III, a young, Western-educated former monk, was elected president of the Republic, holding this position until his death in 1977. His successor, Archbishop Chrysostomos, was still head of the Church of Cyprus at the beginning of the 1990s. He was a conservative leader, both in religious and political matters, well-suited for a church that had never undergone reforms similar to those instituted by the Second Vatican Council for the Roman Catholic Church.
The church had long been composed of four episcopal sees: the archbishopric of Nicosia, and the Metropolitanates of Paphos, Kition, and Kyrenia. New Metropolitanates were created by Makarios in 1973 for Limassol and Morphou, with a suffragan (or assistant) bishop in Salamis under the archbishop. A bishop had to be a graduate of the Orthodox theological seminary in Greece and be at least thirty years of age. Since Orthodox bishops were sworn to a vow of celibacy and parish clergy were usually married, bishops were recruits from monasteries rather than parish churches. Bishops were not appointed by the archbishop, but, like him, were elected through a system granting representation to laymen, other bishops, abbots, and regular clergy.
Individual churches, monasteries, dioceses, and charitable educational institutions organized by the Church of Cyprus were independent legal persons enjoying such rights and obligations as holding property. In exchange for many church lands acquired by the government, the government assumed responsibility for church salaries. Parish clergy, traditionally married men chosen by their fellow villagers, were sent for brief training before ordination. In the twentieth century, modernisers, most notably Archbishop Makarios, were instrumental in strengthening the quality and training of priests at the Cypriot seminary in Nicosia
The monasteries of Cyprus had always been very important to the Church of Cyprus. By the twentieth century many had long lain in ruins, but their properties were among the most important holdings of the church, the island’s largest landowner. Although the number of monks decreased in the postwar era, in the early 1990s there were at least ten active monasteries in the government-controlled areas
In the Orthodox church, ritual was to a great extent the centre of the church’s activity, for Orthodox doctrine emphasises ‘the mystery of God’s grace rather than salvation through works and knowledge’. Seven sacraments are recognized: baptism in infancy, followed by confirmation with consecrated oil, penance, the Eucharist, matrimony, ordination, and unction in times of sickness or when near death.
Formal services are lengthy and colourful, with singing, incense, and elaborate vestments according to the occasion for the presiding priest. Statues are forbidden, but the veneration of icons, located on the church’s walls and often covered with offerings of the faithful, is highly developed. Easter is the focus of the church year, closing the Lenten fasting with an Easter Eve vigil and procession. Marriage is a highly ritualized occasion. Formal divorce proceedings are required for broken engagements that have been ratified by the church. The wedding sponsors play an important role in the family, for they usually act as godparents of all children born of that marriage union.
Religious observance varies. In traditional rural villages, women attend services more frequently than men, and elderly family members are usually responsible for fulfilling religious duties on behalf of the whole family. Church attendance is less frequent in urban areas and among educated Cypriots. For much of the population, religion focuses on rituals at home, veneration of icons, and observance of certain feast days of the Orthodox calendar.
Details of non-Orthodox church services are published in the English-language newspaper The Cyprus Mail / Sunday Mail.
