Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
wishing tree
is located just near here, where the pious tie paper and cloth messages in the
hope that the Virgin Mary will grant their requests.
ARCHBISHOP MAKARIOS III: PRIEST & POLITICIAN
The ethnarch and religious leader of Cyprus during its brief period of independence as a united island, Makarios
was born Michael Christodoulou Mouskos on 13 August 1913, in the small mountain village of Pano Panagia in
Pafos.
He studied in Cyprus and at the University of Athens, and graduated from the School of Theology at Boston
University. Ordained Bishop of Kition in 1946, he became archbishop four years later.
Initially a supporter of the enosis (union with Greece) movement for Cyprus, he later opposed its notions of
independence, commonwealth status and
taksim
(the Turkish objective for separation). However, during the
three-year uprising of the 1950s, the British suspected him of collaboration with the rebel pro-enosis movement
Ethniki Organosi tou Kypriakou Agona (EOKA; National Organisation for the Cypriot Struggle) and he was ex-
iled to the Seychelles.
Still, Makarios was a politician, not an insurgent, and he was welcomed back to Cyprus in 1959. Negotiating
an independence agreement with the British, he was elected president of the newly independent Republic of
Cyprus in a landslide victory on 13 December of that year.
Distancing himself from the enosis movement in favour of independence, Makarios tried to appease the Turk-
ish Cypriot minority on the island and forge a foreign policy of nonalignment. However, he was seen by some
Turkish Cypriots as anti-Turkish, and serious sectarian violence broke out in 1963. The US saw his disinterest in
the west as being too communist and pegged him as the 'Castro of the Mediterranean'.
The Greek junta, abetted by the American CIA and pro-enosis EOKA-B (the post-independence version of
EOKA) radicals, launched a coup in 1974 behind Greek general Grivas with a view to assassinating Makarios and
installing a new government. The coup backfired: Makarios escaped, and Turkey (already preparing for partition)
used the coup as a reason for invasion, politically sabotaging any hope of peace between the two communities.
Turkey started bombing villages and invaded the north of Cyprus.
The junta fell and Makarios returned from England to preside over a now truncated state. He died unexpec-
tedly on 3 August 1977 aged 63. Today he is remembered by many as a leader, a statesman and the embodiment
of the people's aspirations for independence and identity.
Treis Elies
Southwest of Prodromos via the F10 and F811 is Treis Elies, a quiet hamlet perfect for re-
laxation. There's a small river and nature trail around the village and just outside is the
Iamatikes (signposted as 'Ιαματικές')
sulphur spring
, spurting through large rocks. Its
