Peering through the keyhole, but is the Order of Malta Europe’s smallest microstate or an anomalous leftover?

The Aventine Keyhole is said to allow the curious to peer through three sovereign territories at once: the Order of Malta’s property, Italy, and Vatican City (Photograph: Order of Malta)

Patrick Comerford

I have been to some of the smallest states in Europe over the years. Both the Vatican and San Marino are completely landlocked within Italian territory, yet are sovereign entities themselves, with all the international rights and obligations that entails.

Malta is off the coast of Italy, but it too is a sovereign, independent, internationally recognised state and, unlike San Marino and the Vatican, it is a full member of the European Union.

I have missed out on visiting Monaco, Lichtenstein and Andorra, which are also counted as European microstates, although on one occasion I came close to standing on former Andorran sovereign territory when I stood on the steps of the court building in Perpignan, once the supreme court of Andorra although it is in French territory.

Cyprus, where I have worked and been on holiday, and Luxembourg, are too large, both in land territory and population numbers, to be bring the six European microstates up to eight in number. The Isle of Man, which I visited in my teens, and the many Channel Islands, such as Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney and Sark, are not fully sovereign as they are crown dependencies of the United Kingdom and they do not represent themselves in international bodies such as the UN.

The former Supreme Court of Andorra was once in the French city of Perpignan (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

While the microstates have sovereignty over their own territory, there are small autonomous territories in Europe that, despite having more or less own independent government, executive branch, legislature, judiciary, police, and other trappings of independence, are nonetheless under the sovereignty of another state. Some of those anomalous places I have visited include Gibraltar, which is a British overseas territory surrounded by Spain, but not a separate independent state.

And I have been to places that are unusual, such as Mount Athos, the autonomous monastic community in Greece, often described as a monastic state and under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

In Cyprus, I have passed though Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which is a British overseas territory, and I have crossed the ‘Green Line’ in Nicosia into the so-called ‘Turkish Republic of Norther Cyprus’, hardly a microstate as it remains essentially the Turkish-occupied part of the divided island and its statehood is not recognised by the UN, the EU, any EU member state or in international law.

The border crossing between San Marino and Italy … the mountain republic is totally surrounded by Italian territory (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

At times, counting these places is like counting sheep in restless or sleepless moments in the night, and reminiscent of the 99 Ealing comedy Passport to Pimlico, which I was writing about the week before last (7 August 2026). But over the weekend, I found myself asking whether I had missed out on listing one European microstate that I may also have visited in the past.

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes and of Malta, to give the order its formal and legal name, is a sovereign entity in its title and in international law and it has diplomatic relations with many sovereign states and nations. It no longer has territory, and certainly not in Jerusalem, Rhodes, or Malta, all of which I have visited in the past. On the other hand, some of the order’s buildings in Rome, including its headquarters at the Magistral Palace, have special autonomous privileges in Italian law.

Although not a state, the Order of Malta or the Knights of Malta is a sovereign entity under international law. It has permanent non-state observer status at the UN, it has full diplomatic relations, including embassies, with 115 states, it issues its own stamps, coins, passports and license plates, and it has its own army medical corps.

The Grand Master, who is elected for ten years, is known as the Prince and Grand Master, and is both the religious superior and the Sovereign of the Order of Malta, and also holds the title of Most Eminent Highness.

The biometric passports issued by the Order of Malta are diplomatic and service passports and are said to be among the rarest in the world, with only about 500 in total. They are reserved strictly for members of the government (Sovereign Council), diplomatic corps, and select humanitarian officials, and they are recognised in over 100 countries.

The Battle of Lepanto (1571) by Karel Škréta above the altar in the Church of Our Lady Beneath the Chain, a church linked to the Knights of Malta in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Two friends on Facebook were having a discussion the weekend before last about the international status of the Order of Malta. One suggested that the Order of Malta, rather than the Vatican, is technically the pedantic correct answer to the question, ‘What is the world’s smallest state?’

Unlike the Holy See, which is sovereign over the Vatican City, the Order of Malta has no territory. However, its headquarters in the Palazzo Malta on Via dei Condotti and the Villa Malta on the Aventine Hill are granted extraterritoriality by Italy, and Malta extends the same status to the order’s historical headquarters in Fort St Angelo.

The Aventine Keyhole is a famous peephole in the green door of the Villa del Priorato di Malta in Rome. Looking through the keyhole gives sight of a perfectly manicured garden hedge framing the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica. This unique spot is said to allow the curious to peer through three sovereign territories at once: the order’s property, Italy, and Vatican City.

The Aventine Hill is one of the Seven Hills on which ancient Rome was built. I stayed once in Sant’Anselmo, the Benedictine Abbey on the Aventine Hill, as a guest during a conference on the Church in China. The campus includes Sant’Anselmo Abbey, the offices of the Benedictine Confederation, the residence of the Abbot Primate, the College of Sant’Anselmo, as well as the Church of Sant’Anselmo.

The campus faces onto the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, the square on the Aventine Hill created in 1764 by the architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Outside, on the square, tourists queue up in long lines to peer through the keyhole of the ‘Buco della Serratura’ as they are told that are standing in one state (Italy), looking through another one (Order of Malta), and seeing a third (Vatican).

The former Palace of the Grand Masters in Valletta is now the office of the President of Malta (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

I have visited the former Palace of the Grand Masters in Rhodes. The Knights of Rhodes were expelled from the island by the Ottoman Turks in 1522, and the surviving knights sailed first to Crete, then under Venetian rule, as a staging and regrouping point before moving on to Sicily and eventually Malta, becoming the Knights of Malta. They lost their last footholds in Crete in 1669. The knights were expelled from Malta by Napoleon in 1798, and the former Palace of the Grand Masters in Valletta is now the office of the President of Malta.

Ever since, the Magistral Villa has been at the heart of the Order of Malta’s institutional life, welcoming heads of state, ambassadors and visitors from around the world. It is home to Piranesi’s Church of Santa Maria in Aventino and to the keyhole framing the dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

No passport checks are needed for this experience – but then I’ve never been asked for a passport going in or out of the Vatican or San Marino either. Unlike Monaco, San Marino or Andorra, neither the Vatican nor the Order of Malta has an international football team or football league. Monaco has own international team, but AS Monaco plays in Ligue 1, the top tier of French football, and very successfully too. San Marino is currently the lowest-ranked FIFA-affiliated national football team, having won only three matches since their inception. Its chances might improve dramatically if either the Vatican or San Marino decided to sign up, and perhaps signing up the Order of Malta might even increase the moral tone of the pressure on Gianno Infantino to stand down.

As for the knights’ former territories, Rhodes is a part of Greece and Malta is a sovereign, independent EU-member state. And Air Malta is not the air force of the Knights of Malta – its a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ryanair, and it operates scheduled flights on behalf of Ryanair. It’s more like the ‘Nights of Malta’ and the nearest you get to an order, I suppose, is the orderly queueing for ‘Priority’ and ‘Non-Priority’ boarding.

Malta Air … more like the ‘Nights of Malta’ than the ‘Knights of Malta’, flies the flag for Ryanair (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Catching up on the history of the churches in Oman, from Biblical times to dialogue and a new Anglican church

Farewell to Muscat … without visiting any of the religious centres (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2026)

Patrick Comerford

My brief and furtive passages through Muscat Airport early on Friday morning and two weeks earlier left me with no time to consider the long history of the Christian presence in Oman. But in sleepless bouts brought about by jet lag in the last two days, I have been catching up on some of the stories, form Biblical times to a late 19th century Anglican missionary bishop, Oman’s role in advancing Christian-Muslim dialogue and peace-making in the Gulf region and Middle East, and the emergence of a new Anglican church in Muscat.

Christian churches in Oman are mainly found in the Muscat area, Sohar, and Salalah, meeting the needs of a large expatriate population. The major denominations include Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, and various Protestant and evangelical groups.

Islam is the official state religion, and Article 28 of the constitution limits freedom of religious practices to the boundaries of Islamic law and proselytising in public is forbidden. Instruction in Islam is compulsory in public schools, but people who are legally non-Muslims are exempted from this.

Christianity is the religion of 3.63% of the population of Oman, with about 90 Christian congregations. Almost all Christians there are from other countries, including the Philippines, India and some Western countries.

Oman can claim to be one of the Biblical lands: Job’s tomb is claimed to be in Oman, although it is one of three places that claim to be his burial place; the Queen of Sheba, who brought spices to King Solomon (see I Kings 10), held territories in what is now south Oman; and the gifts brough to the Christ Child by the Magi may have been from the region, such as frankincense and myrrh found in the Dhofar. Later, it is said, the Apostle Thomas brought Christianity to the shores of Oman on his way to India.

The Chronicle of Arbela, which may date from the mid-sixth century, tells of a diocese at Bet Mazunaye, an area that included Oman. The Bishop of Sohar or Beit Mazunayeh attended synods in the years 424, 544, 576 and 676 CE.

There are few official records of Christianity in Oman from that time until the arrival of the Portuguese in 1504. Portugal occupied from 1507 to 1650 and the ruins of what is thought to have been a church have been found in Suhar.

Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church in Ruwi is the oldest Catholic church in Muscat

The Roman Catholic Vicariate, the Anglican Church, the Protestant Church of Oman, and the al Amana Centre are among the recognised religious bodies in Oman, and there is a Christian cemetery in Muscat.

Roman Catholics, who number 138,000 in Oman, make up almost 70% of all Christians in the sultanate. They are part of the Apostolic Vicariate of Soth Arabia, with four parishes in Oman – Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church and Holy Spirit Church in Muscat, Saint Anthony’s Church, Sohar, and Saint Francis Xavier Church, Salalah. Saint Peter and Saint Paul Church in Ruwi, the oldest Catholic church is in Muscat, was built in 1977. Most Catholics in Oman are from India and the Philippines, as well as some from Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh.

Eastern Orthodox Christians in Oman are part of the Archdiocese of Baghdad, Kuwait and Dependencies and of the Eastern Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch. There are 24,000 Orthodox Christians in Oman, accounting for 12.5 per cent of Christians in the country The first Orthodox church in Oman, Saint Constantine and Saint Helen, was built in Muscat in 2019.

Bishop Thomas Valpy French died three months after arriving in Muscat in 1891

For Anglicans, Oman is part of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf in the Anglican or Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East. The Anglican presence in Oman dates back to Bishop Thomas Valpy French (1825-1891), who became the first Bishop of Lahore in 1877, and who moved to Muscat in 1891 shortly before he died.

Thomas Valpy French was born in the Abbey, Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, on 1 January 1825, a son of the Revd Peter French, Vicar of Holy Trinity Church, Burton upon Trent, for 47 years, and was educated at University College, Oxford (BA 1846, MA 1849; Fellow 1848-1853)

French joined the Church Mission Society (CMS) in 1850 and was sent to Agra in India, where he founded Saint John’s College. French learnt seven languages, including Hindustani, Punjabi, Urdu, Persian, Pashto and Arabic, and moved to the Punjab in 1861, but ill-health forced him to return for England in 1862. He was consecrated the first Bishop of Lahore in 1877 and remained there until 1887. He founded the Lahore Divinity College, supervised the translation of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer into Hindustani and Pashto, and visited Kashmir and Iran before returning to England in 1887, once again due to ill health.

French insisted all must be equally welcome and respected within a house of worship, with no differences defined by race ot station, or between individuals in ‘a House of Prayer for all people.’ French arrived in Muscat on his final missionary journey on 8 February 1891 and was the first missionary to visit the region. He had just started setting up his work there when his health started failing. He was cared for by Portuguese Catholic missionaries until he died on 14 May 1891 in Muscat, and he was buried in a Christian cemetery.

Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury has described French as a personal hero. He has said that while French ‘seems to have made no converts’ during his final years in the Middle East, he was not there primarily to make converts but out of ‘the desire to be where Jesus was … to be in the company of Jesus Christ.’

Bait al Noor church in Ruwi, Muscat, is part of the Protestant Church in Oman

Two years after French’s death, missionaries from the New Jersey-based Arabian Mission opened a mission station in Muscat in November 1893. Peter Zwemer (1868-1898), a younger brother of Samuel Marinus Zwemer (1867-1952), one of the founders of the Arabian Mission, arrived in Muscat in 1893 and died in 1898.

The mission set up schools, medical facilities with missionary doctors and a printing press in Muscat. For much of its history the primary focus of the mission was the Arabic church, but with the advent of oil the English-language congregation become the main focus.

The Protestant Church in Oman was supported by the Reformed Church in America and became a partnership between the RCA and the Anglican Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf, with both traditions appointing pastors and supporting what has become a multidenominational, multicultural and multinational church.

The PCO that has provided an umbrella group for a number of churches and traditions, with two campuses in Muscat, Ruwi and Ghala, and one in Salalah in the south and Sohar in the north. There are English, Arabic, Tagalog (Filipino) and Korean congregations. The PCO also oversees or sponsors more than 60 congregations in Ruwi and Ghala, and 21 denominations in Oman all come under its umbrella.

Al Amana Centre is one of the few Christian-led organisations in the Muslim-majority world working toward sustainable peace. It has been cultivating dialogue and deep understanding in Oman for over130 years. The centre’s roots are in the work of the Reformed Church in America and it works to foster peace and deeper mutual understanding between all people of faith.

Inside the Anglican Church of Saint John, Muscat

Prince Charles (now King Charles III) was a guest at a service in Bait al Noor church (House of Light) in Ruwi, Muscat, in 2016 to mark the 125th anniversary of the final missionary journey of Bishop Thomas Valpy French. Recent Anglican clergy in Oman have included Alan Gates (1978-1980), John Hall (1980-1982), Daniel Lloyd (1982-1984), Richard Boulter (1984-1986), Ray Skinner (1987-1989), Robert Fieldson (1990-1995), Gerard Storey (1995-1999), John Aldis (2000-2001), Mike Clarkson (2004-2006), Ruth Lichtenberger (2005-2007), Benjamin Chase (2006-2007) and Chris Howitz.

Until the end of January 2023, the Revd Chris Howitz, like Anglican priests in Oman before him, worked under the local auspices of the PCO. The Church of Saint John, Muscat, emerged with reconfiguring the Anglican presence in Oman and an opportunity for a fresh start. The new Church of Saint John was celebrated at the Eucharist on 13 April 2023, attended by Archbishop Michael Lewis and about 100 people, including people who have continued with the PCO, representatives of the RCA and staff of the Al Amana Centre.

Bishop Sean Semple of Cyprus visited Saint John’s Church, Muscat, at the end of last year (13 November 2025 ). He met officials of Oman’s Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs and the PCO and thanked them for the partnerships with the Anglican Church in Muscat.

• The Prayer Diary of the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf today (8 March 2026) invites prayers for ‘the Provinces of the whole Anglican Communion, their people, and Primates’ and for ‘St John’s, Muscat, Oman’.

The Revd Chris Howitz and the Church of Saint John, Muscat

Greece celebrates Oxi Day, but did Metaxas say ‘No’ 85 years ago, and was he truly opposed to fascism?

The Greek flag flying in the Ionian Sea off the coast of Paxos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today is Oxi Day in Greece, the 85th anniversary of the day Greece said No, Όχι, to fascism in 1940 and a day of national pride. In Greek, this day is known as Επέτειος του οχι, or ‘the anniversary of No’.

Oxi Day (sometimes spelt Ohi Day) is a national public holiday in both Greece and Cyprus and is celebrate by Greeks around the world.
On this day 85 years ago (28 October 1940), the Prime Minister of Greece, Ioannis Metaxas, said ‘No’ to Mussolini’s demand to allow Italian troops to cross the border into Greece.

In the days that followed, as news of this rejection by Metaxas spread around Athens and throughout Greece, Greeks took to the streets shouting ‘Oxi! Όχι!’ That refusal on 28 October 1940 is commemorated each year as a day that represents bravery, solidarity and heroism for millions of Greeks all around the world.

Although Greece had tried to remain neutral in the early days of World War II, increasing threats from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy pushed the Greek dictatorship into turning to Great Britain and the allies. The Greek army emerged as a formidable force, holding back the Axis forces from entering Greece for almost six months. Churchill commented at the time: ‘Hence we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks.’

The Greek Parliament facing onto Syntagma Square in Athens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Oxi Day parade in Athens today included marching bands, clubs, societies and school children in their thousands marching through the city centre, along Leoforos Vassilissis Amalias Avenue, moving past the Parliament in Syntagma Square and then along Panepistimiou Street. This display of colour and national pride was repeated in every city and town in Greece.

Oxi Day was also celebrated with free entry into archaeological sites in Athens, including the Acropolis, the Acropolis Museum, the Byzantine Christian Museum and the National Archaeological Museum. Most shops were closed, but most restaurants and bars stayed open, particularly in the main tourist areas.

In Rethymnon in Crete, today also marks the Feast of the Four Martyrs of Rethymnon, commemorating four local men— Angelis, Manuel, George and Nicholas — who were martyred in 1824 for refusing to renounce their Christian faith under Ottoman rule.

Sunday last was the Feast of Saint Demetrios of Thessaloniki (26 October), and both his feast day and Oxi Day were marked with special celebrations in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford last weekend, beginning with Vespers on Saturday, and concluding with themed performances by the children, parents and teachers in the Church Hall at lunchtime on Sunday.

Celebrating Oxi Day in the Greek Orthodox Church in Stony Stratford on Sunday morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Mussolini had been planning his war against Greece for several months. He never informed Hitler of his plans though, and notoriously said that Hitler was going to read about it in the papers.

On 15 August 1940, an Italian submarine fired three torpedoes against Elli, a Greek protected cruiser on the island of Tinos island, and nine people were killed. In an effort to avoid the conflict with Italy, the Greek government never officially acknowledged the nationality of the submarine.

Events escalated week-by-week, and on 28 October 1940 Mussolini gave an ultimatum to the Greek government through the Italian ambassador in Greece, Emanuele Grazzi.

Grazzi asked Metaxas, to allow the Italian troops to pass through Pindos mountains, in the region of Epirus. If the forces were not allowed through the Greek border and Greek territory, then there would be war, Mussolini warned. br />
Tradition says Metaxas replied to this ultimatum with a single word: OXI. This refusal marked the beginning of the Greco-Italian War. On the next day, Italian troops deployed in Albania forced their way into Greece. As the news spread, the whole nation joined forces to combat the foreign invader. People took to the streets, shouting ‘OXI’.

The high morale of the Greek troops and their extreme heroism were praised worldwide, and the Greek Resistance fought with determination against Axis occupation. World leader including the American president Franklin D Roosevelt, the British statesman Winston Churchill, the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and the exiled leader of the French resistance Charles de Gaul all praised the Greek army.

But it is for historians to disentangle myth and history, and popular tellings of stories from the events of the past.

So, did Ioannis Metaxas (1871-1941) actually deliver that one-word rebuttal, Oxi?

And was he taking a principled stand against Fascism?

The Greek flag flying above the Fortezza in Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

When Mussolini demanded that Greece would consent to Italian troops crossing the border into Greece, the story goes, Metaxas responded brusquely and bluntly: ‘OXI!’

In reality, Grazzi and Metaxas had a longer dialogue in French, which is documented in Grazzi’s memoirs. Metaxas responded to the Italian ultimatum in French, the diplomatic language at the time: Alors, c’est la gueree!, ‘Well, then it is War!’

According to Metaxa’s daughter, the dialogue escalated as follows:

Grazzi: Pas nécessaire, mon excellence (Not necessarily, your excellency).

Metaxas: Non, c’est necessaire (No, it is necessary).

But, a long quotation in French does not really work as a slogan in Greek. On 30 October, a creative journalist published an article with the headline ‘ΟΧΙ,’ referring to Metaxas’ refusal. This, in turn, became a catchphrase of the Greek resistance, and it remained a remembered word among generations of Greeks ever after.

The Greek flag outside the church in the village of Tsesmes, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

But was Metaxas a principled political opponent of Fascism and the threatened fascist invasion of Greece?

General Ioannis Metaxas (Ιωάννης Μεταξάς) was born on the island of Ithaka in 1871 into an aristocratic family. He entered the Greek army as a career office at an early age. He took part in the Greco-Turkish War (1897) and the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), and quickly rose through the ranks of the Greek army. He studied at the Berlin War Academy in 1899-1903 on the personal nomination of Crown Prince Constantine and became an admirer of Prussian militarism and an opponent of what he regarded as ‘intemperate parliamentarism’ in Greece.

When Eleftherios Venizelos became Prime Minister, he appointed Metaxas as his adjutant in 1910 as part of an effort at rapprochement with the monarchy. At the outbreak of World War I, Venizelos and King Constantine rejected a German request to join the Central Powers, and instead Venizelos approached the Entente Powers, Britain, France and Russia. Venizelos was shaken when Metaxas resigned in February 1915, and when King Constantine decided to keep Greece neutral Venizelos resigned.

Venizelos won the May 1915 elections, formed a new government and recalled Metaxas as deputy chief of staff. Venizelos received support in Parliament for Greek entry into the war and the presence of allied troops in Thessaloniki with a 152-102 vote on 22 September. However, the king dismissed Venizelos the next day, solidifying the rift between monarchists and Venizelists and creating the ‘National Schism’.

When Constantine and the army leadership allowed German and Bulgarian troops to occupy parts of east Macedonia in 1916, there was widespread popular anger throughout Greece. Venizelist officers launched a revolt in Thessaloniki in August 1916 and Venizelos formed a ‘Government of National Defence’. The new government entered the war on the Allies’ side, while the official Greek state and the royal government remained neutral, and King Constantine and Metaxas were accused of being pro-German.

Metaxas formed a monarchist paramilitary Epistratoi force during the events in Athens known as Noemvriana (November) or ‘Greek Vespers’. But King Constantine was deposed in June 1917 and was replaced by his son, King Alexander. Venizelos returned to office, and Greece officially joined the war.

Metaxas and other leading opponents of Venizelos were exiled to Corsica, but he escaped to Sardinia and later to Siena. He was sentenced to death in absentia in January 1920 for his role in the Noemvriana events. But after the electoral defeat of Venizelos in November 1920, Metaxas retuned to Greece and was reinstated in the army with the rank of major-general.

Following the defeat of Greek forces in Asia Minor, King Constantine was again forced into exile after a coup led by Colonel Nikolaos Plastiras. Metaxas entered politics and founded the Freethinkers’ Party in 1922. However, his role in a failed monarchist coup in October 1923 forced him into exile again. King George II was forced into exile too, the monarchy was abolished, and the Second Hellenic Republic was proclaimed in March 1924.

Metaxas soon returned to Greece, publicly declaring his acceptance of the new republic. But in elections in 1926, his party won 15.8% of the vote and 52 seats in Parliament, and Metaxas became Communications Minister in a coalition formed by Alexandros Zaimis.

His party became entangled in infighting and dropped to 1.6% of the vote and three seats in 1933, but he became Interior Minister in the cabinet of Panagis Tsaldaris. He soon became the most intransigent and extreme of all the Monarchist politicians with his call for an absolute monarchy. When there was a failed assassination attempt against Venizelos in 1933, Metaxas praised it in his newspaper Hellenki, expressing regret only that the attempt failed.

Greek flags at the church in the coastal village of Panormos, east of Rethymnon in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2025)

Venizelist officers attempted a coup in Thessaloniki on 1 March 1935. The city was known as a ‘hotbed of republicanism’ and had taken in the bulk of the 1.3 million Greeks expelled from Turkey in 1923, and the majority of the refugees there lived in extreme poverty.

After the failed coup, Metaxas called for a ‘new order’ in Greece. Tsaldaris called early elections and for a referendum on restoring the monarchy. Metaxas and his party took 20% of the vote in Athens, and the War Minister, General Georgios Kondylis, declared he was an admirer of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. The army was purged of Venizelist officers, Metaxas spoke openly of a civil war and there was a wave of strikes and protests across the country.

Kondylis staged a coup, Tsaldaris was deposed, and George II returned from exile in London after a heavily rigged plebiscite and took the throne in 1935. On 11 December 1935, the king met Ernst Eisenlohr, the German envoy in Athens, who reminded him that Germany was Greece’s largest trading partner and that ‘Greece could not live without her German customers.’

Venizelists and anti-Venizelists failed to form a government after elections on 26 January 1936, in which the Liberals or Venizelists won 141 seats, while the followers of Kondylis won 12 seats and the followers of Metaxas only seven seats. The big breakthrough was by the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) which took 15 seats. The army chief of staff, General Alexandros Papagos, threatened an immediate coup d’état if the Liberals formed an alliance with the KKE.

On 5 March 1936, George II appointed Metaxas the Minister of Defence, a post he held until he died in 1941. A government under Konstantinos Demertzis government was sworn in on 14 March, with Metaxas as vice-president of the government and Minister of Defence. When Demertzis died suddenly on 13 April, the king immediately appointed Metaxas as Prime Minister.

Even Plato’s ‘Republic’ was on the list of banned books under the Metaxas regime (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Parliament voted on 30 April to suspend its sittings. Stikes were called across Greece, and a general strike began in Thessaloniki on 9 May. Metaxas used the unrest to declare a state of emergency. He adjourned parliament indefinitely, suspended many articles of the constitution guaranteeing civil liberties, and declared he would hold ‘all the power I need for saving Greece’.

The regime became known as the ‘4 August Regime’ and Greece became a totalitarian state, in which Metaxas was presented as ‘the First Peasant’, ‘the First Worker’ and ‘the National Father’ of the Greeks. He adopted the title of Arkhigos, Greek for ‘leader’ or ‘chieftain’ and claimed he was initiating a ‘Third Hellenic Civilisation’, inspired by ancient Greece and the Byzantine Empire.

State propaganda portrayed Metaxas as a ‘Saviour of the Nation’, all political parties and strikes were banned, there was widespread censorship, the Communist leader Nikos Zachariadis was arrested, and many political activists were arrested and tortured.

Metaxas made himself Minister of Education in 1938 and had all school texts rewritten to fit the regime’s ideology. Book burnings targeted authors such as Goethe, Shaw, Freud and several Greek writers. Even Plato’s Republic was on the list of banned books. The Fascist salute was introduced, the Minoan double-axe was used in the way Mussolini used the Roman fasces in Italy, and regime propaganda constantly praised Hitler, Mussolini and Franco.

But Metaxas had no mass political party and his power depended on the army and the support of the king. Although most Greeks regarded Italy as their principal enemy, Metaxas saw Germany as a counterweight to Italy.

The crux came when the Italian Ambassador Emanuele Grazzi visited Metaxas at 3 in the morning and in the darkness of the night presented his demands on 28 October 1940, the night of Oxi Day. By morning, Greeks were taking to the streets in cities, towns and villages, chanting ‘Oxi! Όχι!’ A nation refused to bend the knee to fascism or to bow to military threats.

If Greeks had said Yes, Italian troops would have marched in unopposed, independence would have disappeared overnight, the Axis powers would have dominated the Mediterranean, the world would have lost a symbol of resistance, Greek pride and unity would have been silenced and would have dissolved. Greece would have been subugated. Later that morning, Italy invaded Greece from Albania. But Greece fought back, winning the first Allied victory in World War II, and Greeks became an inspiration for anti-fascist resistance throughout Europe.

Metaxas died in Athens on 29 January 1941, before the German invasion and the subsequent fall of Greece. Metaxism was undoubtedly a form of Fascism. During the colonels’ junta in 1967-1974, he was honoured as a patriot.

Many of his decisions and policies have uncanny reflections in the actions of the Trump regime in the US today, from banning books in schools, to overriding the elected members of parliament, ignoring the constitution, arresting political opponents, promising to make Greece great again, pretending to be a voice of the people, and proclaiming himself the ‘leader’, the ‘chieftain’ and the ‘Saviour of the Nation’.

Metaxas never said No, his reply was, in fact, a polite diplomatic démarche in French. It was ordinary Greeks who took to the streets shouting ‘Oxi! Όχι!’ and the word Όχι echoed throughout Greece. The word belongs to them, and the heroism was theirs. So, it is paradoxical but understandable that Metaxas has also become a symbol for Greeks across the political spectrum of resistance to Fascism, and for Cypriots this resistance to an Italian invasion has parallels to resistance to the Turkish invasion over half a century ago in 1974.

Daily prayer in Ordinary Time 2025: 33, Wednesday 11 June 2025, Saint Barnabas the Apostle

An icon of Saint Barnabas in Saint Barnabas Church in Jericho, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 50-day season of Easter, which began on Easter Day (20 April 2025), came to an end on Sunday with the Day of Pentecost or Whit Sunday (8 June 2025), and once again in the Church Calendar we are in Ordinary Time.

The Church Calendar today commemorates Saint Barnabas the Apostle (11 June). Later day, I have a lunchtime meeting in Saint Mary’s Church, Wavendon, I hope to join the choir rehearsals this evening in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, reading today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

An icon of Saint Barnabas in Saint Barnabas Church in Jericho, Oxford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 15: 12-17 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 12 ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16 You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.’

Saint Paul (left), the Prophet Elijah (centre) and Saint Barnabas (right) in a window in Saint Editha’s Church, Tamworth (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

Shortly before my ordination, Bishop Noel Willoughby, who had retired as Bishop of Cashel and Ossory and was then living in Wexford, told me about what he called his ‘Barnabas File.’

As a bishop, he regularly got letters moaning and groaning about what he had done or what he had failed to do. He read them, acted on them if he needed to, and then dumped them. But when he got encouraging letters, praising him, or just simply nice letters, he filed them away in his ‘Barnabas File’ and then take them out and read them when the pressures of ministry and the critics were grinding him down. Those letter writers were to him what Saint Barnabas was to the Apostle Paul on their shared missionary journeys.

In the Church Calendar, today is the Feast of Saint Barnabas. The lectionary readings for the Eucharist today include Acts 11: 19-30, set in Antioch, where we are called Christians for the first time. Earlier, Barnabas had sold all his goods and had given his money to the apostles in Jerusalem (Acts 4: 36-37). Now, in Acts 11, Barnabas arrives in Antioch. He then brings Saul from Tarsus to Antioch, and the two are sent out together.

Barnabas and Paul travel together for such a long time that their names are almost inseparable. When a dispute arises about taking John Mark with them, that dispute ends with Paul and Barnabas taking separate routes.

In today’s Gospel reading (John 15: 12-17), we are reminded that the great commandment Christ gives us is to love one another as Christ loves us (verse 12), and that we are called to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last (verse 16).

Christ tells us we have been given his commands so that we may love one another (verse 17). If we love one another, and if that becomes our priority in ministry, then we too can be like Barnabas to the other Pauls we meet in our Christian life.

Love one another. And that is enough.

Saint Barnabas (left) among the icons in the Baptistry in the west apse of Saint Barnabas, Jericho (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Wednesday 11 June 2025, Saint Barnabas the Apostle):

‘Pentecost’ is the theme this week (8-14 June) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel). This theme was introduced on Sunday with reflections by Dr Paulo Ueti, Theological Advisor and Regional Manager for the Americas and the Caribbean, USPG.

The USPG prayer diary today (Wednesday 11 June 2025, Saint Barnabas the Apostle) invites us to pray:

Lord, we pray for your blessing on the Church of Saint Barnabas in Limassol and the Diocese of Cyprus and the Gulf more widely. May they follow the example of Saint Barnabas, Patron Saint of Cyprus, in faith, generosity, and perseverance.

The Collect:

Bountiful God, giver of all gifts,
who poured your Spirit upon your servant Barnabas
and gave him grace to encourage others:
help us, by his example,
to be generous in our judgements
and unselfish in our service;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post Communion Prayer:

Almighty God,
who on the day of Pentecost
sent your Holy Spirit to the apostles
with the wind from heaven and in tongues of flame,
filling them with joy and boldness to preach the gospel:
by the power of the same Spirit
strengthen us to witness to your truth
and to draw everyone to the fire of your love;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflections

Continued Tomorrow

With Canon Norman Ruddock (left) and Bishop Noel Willoughby (right) in Wexford in 1998 … a reminder of the ‘Barnabas Files’

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Daily prayer in Christmas 2024-2025: 26, Sunday 19 January 2025, Second Sunday of Epiphany

The Wedding at Cana … a detail in the window by John Hardman & Co of Birmingham in Saint Mary’s Church in St Neots, Cambridgeshire (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The 40-day season of Christmas continues until Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February). Today is the Second Sunday of Epiphany (Epiphany II), with readings that focus on the Wedding at Cana, the third great Epiphany theme, alongside the Visit of the Magi and the Baptism of Christ.

Two of us are in York for the weekend, and we are at a family celebration in Harrogate yesterday. Later this morning, I hope to attend the Eucharist in Saint Olave’s Church, York.

This is the Second Day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:

1, today’s Gospel reading;

2, a short reflection;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;

4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.

The miracle at Cana depicted in an icon in the Lady Chapel in Lichfield Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

John 2: 1-11 (NRSVA):

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 4 And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ 5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ 6 Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.’ 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

The Wedding at Cana, depicted by Giotto in a fresco panel in the Scrovegni Chapel, Padua (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Reflection:

The Christmas lights and Christmas trees on Stony Stratford’s High Street came down last Sunday. But, of course, we are still in the Season of Christmas and Epiphany for another two weeks, until 2 February. The Greek word ἐπιφάνεια (epipháneia) means ‘manifestation,’ or ‘striking appearance.’ It is an experience of sudden and striking realisation, and in the classics it often describes the visit of a god to earth.

This morning’s Gospel reading, the story of the Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), is one of the three great Epiphany themes, along with the Visit of the Magi (Matthew 2: 1-12, 6 January 2025, The Epiphany), and last Sunday’s story of the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist (Luke 3: 17-17, 21-22, 12 January 2025). These three themes at Epiphany tell us who Christ truly is: truly God and truly human.

In each of these three events, Christ is manifest as God-incarnate at a point that marks the beginning of his ministry or his presence among us. It is the moment when we are caught off guard as we realise that this seemingly helpless new-born child, or this one among many in the team of visitors to John the Baptist at the Jordan, or this anonymous guest among many at a provincial wedding, is in fact the omnipotent God, the King and Ruler of the universe.

The star of the Epiphany, the light the three wise men have the courage to follow on a hazardous journey, is the same light that enlightens us at the Epiphany so that we realise who Christ is – for us and for the world.

The water in which Christ is baptised is the very same as the water that becomes wine at Cana, and the water that flows from Christ’s side when his life comes to an end on the Cross.

But the Epiphany stories also have a built-in thread or reminder of journey and return:

• The three kings return to their own country, albeit by another road, yet carrying their new revelation to all they return to (see Matthew 2: 12).

• After his Baptism, Christ goes into wilderness (see Matthew 4: 1) and then withdraws to Galilee to begin his ministry (see Matthew 4: 12; Mark 1: 14; Luke 3: 23; John 1: 43).

• After the wedding at Cana, Jesus goes down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples (see John 2: 12).

So, the feast of the Epiphany is linked with the call to return to the world with the message of the kingdom of God.

The wise men represent not only the three Magi adoring the Christ Child over 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem, but they also represent the Gentile world hurrying to the wedding feast at the end of time, when humanity’s wedding with the divine Bridegroom is celebrated. The gold, frankincense and myrrh they bring are not only presents for the Child-King, but royal wedding gifts for the mystical marriage feast of heaven.

The lectionary readings take a diversion this morning, away from this year’s cycle of readings in Saint Luke’s Gospel, to tell us the story of the Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-11), a story that is unique to Saint John’s Gospel.

In the beginning, Saint John’s Gospel introduces us to a new creation, a new creation that is in Christ. After the Prologue, there are six days in this new creation, and now we come to Day Seven.

What did God do on the Seventh Day in the account of creation in Genesis? God rested. And now that we have arrived at Day Seven in the opening week of Saint John’s Gospel, we come to the Day that Christ rests with his disciples, and to a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet, which is the completion of God’s creation. ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19: 9).

Seven has a symbolic meaning or significance in this Gospel. This is the first of the seven miraculous signs by which Saint John attests to Christ’s divine status. This Gospel is structured around these signs, and the word used by John is unique.

Turning Water into Wine at Cana is the first of the Seven Signs in Saint John’s Gospel, followed by healing a royal official’s son at Cana (4: 46-54), healing the paralysed man at Bethesda (5: 1-9), feeding the 5,000 (6: 1-14); walking on water (6: 15-24); healing the blind man (9: 1-7); and raising Lazarus from the dead (11: 17-45).

These are completed then by the Greatest Sign, the Resurrection (see 2:18-22).

So, the first of the seven signs comes on the seventh of the seven days that introduce the Gospel.

And it seems so right that this Epiphany moment this morning takes place in a very divine and a very human moment: at a family weekend wedding, which is as earthy as you can get, I suppose; and on the seventh day, when God rests in the creation story, when Christ rests in his grave after his passion.

We are now invited into the eighth day. We are invited to be God’s partner in creation after the creation story in Genesis; we are invited by Christ to the heavenly banquet; we are invited in the Eucharist, at Holy Communion, to eat and drink with him. He offers us food and drink that shall never run out.

Throughout the Bible, we have promises that there will be an abundance of wine in the time of the Messiah (Genesis 27: 27-28; 49: 10-12; Amos 9: 13-14), especially at the wedding feasts (see Isaiah 62: 4-5).

The six stone jars at Cana contain water for rites of purification. These are ceremonial rites, not hygienic rites. But each jar contains 20 or 30 gallons, so we are talking about 180 gallons of wine – roughly speaking, in today’s terms, 1,091 bottles of wine. And because the wine was so good (see 9-10) in those days, water was added to it. This may have double the amount – so perhaps up to 1,500 or 2,000 bottles of wine by today’s reckoning. It is enough to ensure they party for days. It is a joyful and generous miracle.

The wine in this story represents the overflowing and abundant blessings of God coming to fruition, to fulfilment.

Of course, I imagine the Kingdom of God is just like a big wedding. Those who are invited are going to include people I at first may be uncomfortable to sit with at the same table. But I am not the host, I am the guest. As it says in the Book of Revelation, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19: 9).

I cannot choose who is invited to the wedding, but I can accept the invitation to the meal, and the invitation to be part of the new family, the kingdom.

And if we accept the invitation, we have no right to pick and choose, to discriminate against my fellow guests, to cheat them out of their place at the table, to refuse to eat and drink with them.

We do not know who the bride and groom were at the wedding in Cana. But we know we are invited to the banquet, not as spectators but as family members, as members of Christ’s own family, as full members of God’s family. We are loved abundantly, we are loved generously, we are loved truly, and there is a place for each and every one of us at God’s banquet of love.

‘The Wedding at Cana’ (John 2: 1-11) … one of 20 white porcelain ceramic panels by Helena Brennan at the Oblate Church in Inchicore, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Today’s Prayers (Sunday 19 January 2025, Epiphany II):

The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church’, the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Whom Shall I Send?’ This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by Rachael Anderson, Senior Communications and Engagement Manager, USPG:

The second year of the ‘Whom Shall I Send’ leadership, ministry, and mission training took place on 26 August in Famagusta, in partnership with the Province of Jerusalem and the Middle East and the Anglican Alliance. Young people from dioceses across the region, including the United Arab Emirates, Palestine, Jordan, Cyprus, Qatar, and Jerusalem, gathered to strengthen cross-cultural leadership grounded in understanding diverse contexts.

The theme for the week, ‘Under the Tent of Abraham and Sarah,’ guided discussions on welcoming strangers, peacebuilding in religious conflicts, and partnering with God.

The group visited key locations such as Nicosia and Varosha, using Cyprus’ history of conflict and reconciliation as a learning tool. Their time together was rooted in worship, prayer, and spiritual reflection, culminating in a Holy Communion service where participants committed to carrying their newfound insights into their local communities.

The Right Revd Sean Semple, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Cyprus and The Gulf shared at the opening Eucharist: ‘It is important for us to be gathered in a place of division like Cyprus, seeking God’s inspiration to be peacemakers.’

The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 19 January 2025, Epiphany II) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:

‘I will establish my covenant between me and you, and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you’ (Genesis 17: 7).

The Collect:

Almighty God,
in Christ you make all things new:
transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of your grace,
and in the renewal of our lives
make known your heavenly glory;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Post-Communion Prayer:

God of glory,
you nourish us with your Word
who is the bread of life:
fill us with your Holy Spirit
that through us the light of your glory
may shine in all the world.
We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.

Additional Collect:

Eternal Lord,
our beginning and our end:
bring us with the whole creation
to your glory, hidden through past ages
and made known
in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Yesterday’s Reflection

Continued Tomorrow

Waiting for a wedding reception at the Boot and Flogger in Southwark … there is a place for each and every one of us at God’s banquet of love (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)


Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Reminders half a century later of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 20 July 1974

Two refugee boys from Northern Cyprus huddled in a tent … today marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 20 July 1974 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Today marks the fiftieth anniversary of Turkish invasion of Cyprus on 20 July 1974. It is difficult to grasp that, after 50 years, a member state of the European still remains divided and part occupied, and that Nicosia, a European capital city, remains divided.

The memory of the invasion of Cyprus is still sharp in my mind. A few months later, I joined the staff of The Irish Times, and Cyprus later became one of the places I wrote about on a regular basis when I was a journalist on the Foreign Desk.

I first visited Cyprus earlier in 1987, 13 years after the invasion, and the memories of the Turkish invasion were still raw then and continued to hurt deeply. I stayed in Limassol at the end of the summer season that year, but travelled throughout the island, visiting Paphos, Larnaca. Ayia Napa, the RAF base at Akrotiri, Mount Olympos, the Troodos Mountains above Nicosia, and the grave of Archbishop Makarios in a tomb he had designed himself on Throni Hill, 3 km from Kykko Monastery.

Archbishop Makarios was the spiritual and political head of his people, and in the late 1950s he was a firm supporter of both enosis or full union with Greece and the armed guerrillas in EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston, the National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) led by George Grivas.

After Cypriot independence, Archbishop Makarios became President of Cyprus in 1960. He believed Cyprus was too close to Turkey and that enosis was a dangerous demand. Turkey was much closer than Greece, with the Turkish coast a mere 40 miles away. But relations between both Athens and Ankara deteriorated, and EOKA B was formed to continue fighting for enosis, with daily kidnappings and murders.

The Greek Cypriot majority and the Turkish Cypriot minority remained polarised, and the colonels who had seized power in Athens in 1967 were determined to force enosis on Cyprus.

The presidential palace was attacked by Soviet-made tanks on 16 July 1974 and set on fire. The coup plotters claimed the president had been killed, but he survived the fourth attempt to murder him by escaping by the back door of the palace with his bodyguards.

He was spirited away to safety in Paphos, where he was born. From there, a British helicopter took him to the RAF base at Akrotiri and he was then flown to London and New York, where he addressed the UN Security Council on 19 July.

Meanwhile, the new Turkish prime minister Bülent Ecevit – a translator of TS Eliot into Turkish – warned the regime in Athens that unless the junta immediately climbed down and Cyprus reverted to the previous state of affairs, including restoration of Archbishop Makarios, Turkish military would intervene.

The colonels installed Nikos Sampson, a former EOKA hitman, as an acting, puppet president. Sampson had once been a reporter for the Cyprus Times but was also a target spotter for EOKA, and had spent time in Wandsworth Prison.

Cyprus had a ¬sizeable Turkish Cypriot minority, and the Turkish Cypriot leader was Rauf Denktash, a London-trained lawyer. Turkey began Operation Attila shortly after daybreak on 20 July 1974, with an air and sea assault, and Turkish ¬paratroopers were dropped to reinforce the Turkish Cypriot militia in the northern sector of Nicosia.

The fighting dragged on for almost a month, and reliable sources estimate between 4,500 and 6,000 Greek Cypriots were killed, wounded or missing, believed dead, and between 1,500 to 3,800 dead Turkish Cypriots. The refugee figures estimated 200,000 Greek Cypriots moved south and 50,000 Turkish Cypriots moved north.

There were countless broken ceasefires and failed rounds of peace talks in Geneva. In the last hours of the fighting, a Turkish tank attack captured Famagusta, the only deep-water port in Cyprus. The Ledra Palace on the Green Line in Nicosia became part of the buffer zone UN troops Canadians tried to establish between combatants.

Sampson resigned on 23 July and the presidency passed to Glafkos Klerides. Archbishop Makarios remained in London for five months. Meanwhile, the military policies and oppressive actions of the regime eventually brought down the colonels’ junta in Athens, and democracy was restored.

Archbishop Makarios secured international recognition for his administration as the legitimate government of the whole island, he returned to Cyprus and was restored as President on 7 December 1974. He was still in office when he died on 3 August 1977 aged 64.

Turkey occupied over one-third of the island, although the Turkish Cypriot community is less than one-fifth of the population, and a puppet state was set when the Turkish-occupied sector declared itself the Turkish Federated State of Cyprus in 1975. The name was changed to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in 1983.



When I had visited Cyprus in 1987, the memories of the Turkish invasion were still raw. I visited both Greece and Turkey constantly in the years that followed, and continued to follow Cypriot politics closely.

After the Turkish invasion of the rock islet of Imia in the Aegean in 1996, I spent some days with the Greek navy in the sea around Rhodes, Kos, Kalimnos and other, smaller islands, and was taken to see Imia for myself despite Turkish threats to both Greek and international journalists, and was interviewed for a Greek television news channel. During those tense weeks and month, Greeks were reminded of the invasion of Cyprus and were in their fears that Turkish aggression is an ever-present threat.

That year, I also took part in a high-level conference organised by the London School of Economics (LSE) and the Hellenic Centre in London on the Cypriot ambitions for EU membership, and analysed these hopes in a feature in The Irish Times.

On visits to Greek military headquarters in Athens, I noticed how the names of senior figures involved in the colonels’ regime and in plotting the failed coup in Cyprus had been wiped off the honour boards, their spaces left blank as an indication of the ignominy in which they are held.

The memories of the Turkish invasion were still raw then and continued to hurt deeply when I returned to Cyprus in 2000, spending Orthodox Holy Week and the Easter season on a working visit in Nicosia. I climbed the viewing platforms, crossed the Green Line at the Ledra Palace, visited churches, mosques and a Sufi tekke, met politicians, journalists, econmists, bankers, business leaders, and elderly men who had fought in EOKA, and spoke to UN peacekeepers. I also interviewed Clive Handford, the Anglican Bishop in Cyprus and the Gulf. In a personal touch, they prayed for me in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the Anglican cathedral in Nicosia, as I prepared for my ordination a few weeks later.

I wrote features in The Irish Times on Cypriot politics and economics, and an ‘Irishman’s Diary’ on the Irish links with Cyprus, including Sir Garnet Wolseley from Dublin who was the first British High Commissioner of Cyprus, and the Anglican chaplain in Ayia Napa, the Revd Robin Brookes, a former Rector of Drumcondra. I wrote features too on Church life in Cyprus for the Church of Ireland Gazette and diocesan magazines.

The following year, I reported on the election in Cyprus in 2001 for The Irish Times, and I interviewed Dr George Vassiliou, a former President of Cyprus (1988-1993) who was the Chief Negotiator for Cyprus during the talks on accession to the EU from 1998 to 2003.

During that Easter working visit to Cyprus in 2000, I bought a limited edition prints that were hanging on the walls and on the stairs of my home in Knocklyon, Dublin, for many year.

One is a bright, colourful picture of a bride preparing for her wedding. The other is a print showing two small boys, probably brothers, the older boy protecting his younger brother, who may have been blinded. They are Greek Cypriot refugees from Northern Cyprus, huddled in a tent after fleeing the Turkish invasion in 1974.

At the time I bought this print in Nicosia, I was hurt and broken as it reminded me of my own two sons back in Dublin, and I fretted and prayed about their future.

After framing the print, I came across a copy of the original photograph of the two boys who inspired this print or painting. It is still heart-breaking. I wonder whatever happened to these boys, who must now be in their 60s, and I still pray for them.

But the plight of the refugees in the Mediterranean still lives with us, and that image continue to remind me to speak up today for the refugees and to condemn our poor response to their plight and needs.

A bride prepares for her wedding in Cyprus … a limited edition print bought in Nicosia in 2000 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Greeks have a word for it: 41, Idiotic, Ιδιωτικός

Ιδιωτικός Χώρος means ‘Private Parking’ – not ‘Idiotic Place’ … a sign at Lofos Apartments in Piskopianó in Crete (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)

Patrick Comerford

I have done some idiotic things in my days. I wrote recently about how I once left travellers’ cheques behind and had to rush to open a bank account in Hersonissos in order to salvage a three-week stay at Mika Villas in Piskopianó in Crete.

But I have also left a camera behind, and I have left luggage and clothes at hotels in Japan and Turkey.

I jumped into a swimming pool at an hotel in Limassol in Cyprus at the age of 35, only to realise as I hit the water that I had avoided learning how to swim at school 20 years earlier.

I felt idiotic one year when I came down a tall and fast slide at Acqua Plus Water Park, the biggest waterpark in Crete, not knowing how to stand up in the water as I reached the end of the slide.

Some of my friends even thought I was idiotic at the age of 63 to take an early morning balloon flight above the ‘fairy chimneys’ in Cappadocia.

Perhaps it was idiotic of me never to have learned how to drrive. I managed to take about 30 or so driving lessons in the Terenure and Rathfarnham area of Dublin around 1978 or 1979. If you want to see idiotic driving or idiotic parking, simply put me behind the driving wheel.

On a sunny afternoon last month, as I was walking down the hillside from Piskopianó to Hersonissos, a sign outside Lofos Apartments reminded me how much words can change their meaning and significance when they are adapted from Greek into English.

The sign says Ιδιωτικός Χώρος, meaning not ‘Idiotic Place’ but ‘Private Parking.’

Today we use the word idiot unkindly to denote a person of low intelligence or a stupid, even foolish person. The word has come into English through Old French from the Latin idiota, meaning an ‘ignorant person’, and that in tuns comes from the Greek ἰδιώτης (idiōtēs), a private person, as opposed to the state, a lay person a private citizen or amateur as opposed to a government official, a professional person, or an expert.

Fyodor Dostoevsky had a nuanced understanding of the word ‘idiot’ in The Idiot, first published in 1868-1869. The title refers to the central character, Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin, whose goodness, open-hearted simplicity, and guilelessness lead many of the more worldly characters to mistakenly assume he lacks intelligence and insight.

Myshkin is completely aware that he is not an ‘idiot’ in any pejorative sense. But most of the other characters at one time or another refer to him disparagingly as an 'idiot', although nearly all of them are deeply affected by him. In truth he is highly intelligent, self-aware, intuitive, and empathic.

He is someone who has thought deeply about human nature, morality and spirituality, and is capable of expressing those thoughts with great clarity. Dostoevsky is depicting ‘the positively good and beautiful man’ at the centre of the conflicts, desires, passions, and egoism of worldly society.

The word idiot was never used in classical Greek in a derogatory way to refer to an ignorant, unlearned or unlettered person. It comes from the adjective ἴδιος (idios), meaning one’s own, private, not shared, as opposed to public.

In a similar way, the English word ‘idiom’ comes from Middle French idiome, and its Late Latin source, idioma, from the Ancient Greek ἰδίωμα (idíōma), a peculiarity, property, a peculiar phraseology, idiom; from ἰδιοῦσθαι (idioûsthai), to make one's own, appropriate to oneself; and from ἴδιος (ídios), one’s own, pertaining to oneself, private, personal, peculiar, separate.

The word idiotic is from Greek Ιδιωτικός idiotikos, meaning private as opposed to public. It is only when the word is adapted in Latin, and developed in French and English that it begins to have the meaning it has today.

The term ‘idiopathic’ derives from Greek ἴδιος (idios), ‘one’s own,’ and πάθος (pathos), ‘suffering’. So, idiopathy means something like ‘a disease of its own kind.’

In medicine, an idiopathic disease is any disease with an unknown cause or mechanism of apparent spontaneous origin. With idiopathic medical conditions, the causes may not be readily apparent or characterised. Certain medical conditions, when idiopathic, notably some forms of epilepsy and stroke, are preferentially described by the synonymous term cryptogenic.

Pulmonary sarcoidosis is a typical interstitial lung diseases with unknown etiology that could be described as idiopathic. It is a condition I have been living with since at least 2008, and probably even longer.

Even here, the word sarcoidosis comes from the Greek σάρκο- (sarco-), meaning ‘flesh, (e)ido from the Greek εἶδος (-eidos), meaning ‘type’, ‘resembles’ or ‘like’, and -sis, a common suffix in Greek meaning ‘condition’. In other words, the whole word sarcoidosis means ‘a condition that resembles crude flesh.’

Meanwhile, if you still think it was idiotic of me to tumble down the slide in the waterpark near Hersonissos like that on a summer holiday in Crete, or to take an early-morning balloon trip in Cappadocia, all I can say is: ‘I did it my way.’

Previous word: 40, Praxis, Πρᾶξις

Next word:: 42, Pentecost, Πεντηκοστή

I have done some things in the water and in the air that others may regard as idiotic … a decorative mural at Villa Synergy in Hersonissos (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2024)