Teaching Religion part 2

Makarios of Alexandria

SEPTEMBER 6th

There are two great saints called Macarios or Makarios and they were friends in Egypt. It is after these saints that the Archbishop, the First President of Cyprus, the Ethnarth (or father of the nation), was named in the Kykkos Monastery on the Troödos mountains. Later, he was elected Bishop of Kition in absentia while he was still studying on a World Council of Churches’ scholarship in Boston. Two years’ later at the age of only 37, he was the archbishop and de facto “ethnarch”, the leader of the Greek Cypriot community. He is a divisive figure but in fact much of his activity is fairly straightforward and he attracted rather a heavy dose of aggression from the British secret services who peddled fairly unconvincing stories of clerical naughtiness in an attempt to undermine the process of Enosis which by that time he had fairly robustly defied.

It was a difficult time dominated by the rise of the Junta in Modern Greece.

While he remained respected in Grteece, Makarios lost the support of the Cypriot community he governed. The British Prime minister disliked him intensely calling him a “stinker of the first order” and an American official apparently called him “a wold in Priest’s clothing,” branding him the “Castro of the mediterranean”. Part of this was his appeal to Soviet Russia for help during teh Cypriot crisis and also his failure to condemn the large Cypriot communits party, Akel.

When the insurrection began in 1955 against British rule, Makarios had only just been elected Archbishop. He was young and charismatic, and he was certainly photographed with General Grivas who led the EOKA movement towards enosis(union) with the mainland. Makarios was arrested by the British in 1956 and exiled to the Seychelles. This is what the BBC reported then:

“The archbishop was arrested when he arrived at Nicosia airport to board an airliner for Athens after refusing to denounce the use of violence. Britain has accused him of ‘actively fostering terrorism’.”

His arrest led to a fairly blanket resignation by the Greek policeforce which the British replaced with Turkish-led recruits who were happier to remain under collonial control.

This did not play well, because it led to suspicion that the British favoured the Turkish minority and that they tacitly encouraged the Turkish Resistance movement (TMT) which in turn wanted “taksim” partition and union with Turkey.

Makarios, however, was released from the Seychelles in 1959 and brokered a compromise agreement between Greece, Turkey and Britain, giving up ENOSIS and accepting independence. He was elected Prisident. The BBC recorded: “One of the first people to hail the archbishop’s success was the leader of the Turkish community, Dr Fazil Kucuk, once one of his bitterest rivals but now a staunch ally and soon-to-be vice-president.”

Makarios managed three years before attempting to modify the constitution and provoking a Turkish backlash. A greenline was drawn in Nicosia and UN peacekeepers, Unificyp were introduced in March 1964. By 1967, Turkey and Greece were poised to fight over Cyprus. Dampening down the crisis with an election, Makarios ran on an anti-ENOSIS ticket securing a landslide particularly because AKEL-leaning Cypriots looked warily at the new right-wing Greek junta. With a fresh mandate, Makarios ordered peace-talks between his man Glafcos Clerides and the Turksih leader Rauf Denktash in June 1968.

The junta had other ideas and plotted his assassination in 1970. Miraculously he walked away from his gunned-down helicopter. But the Junta then sent Grivas back to Cyprus to stir up discontent, and clamour against the “betrayal of enosis”, founding Eoka B, committed to the overthrow of the Archbishop.

By 1974, he was convinced that the Junta had infiltrated the National guard. He issued an ultimatum but instead on 15th July at 8. 15 am, the suspect officers launched their coup. Makarios escaped to Paphos and then to London. On 19th July, at the UN Security council, he denonced the coup as “an invasion” which “violated the internal peace of Cyprus” asking the UN for “all possible aid”. In a meeting with the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson, he conceded that the Junta’s actions would force Turkey’s hand: “What practical measures can be taken. It is against the Turkish interests for Cyprus to become part of Greece.”

The junta imposed Nikos Sampson as President and 5 days later, on 20th July, Turkey invaded the North invoking its rights as military guarantor of peace. In Turkish Cyprus this action is called “the Peace Operation”. Sampson lasted 8 days as the Junta in Greece collapsed and Clerides replaced him until Makarios could return.

In February 1977, Makarios signed an accord with Rauf Denktash that effectively sealed the federal solution still in place today. He died unexpectedly in August that year.

St Makarios was really not much less controversial if truth be told! Makarios of Egypt, Makarios the GREAT was one of the founding fathers of Monasticism. Makarios of Alexandria was also a monk, giving up a life in trade and living as a hermit in a cave from about the age of 40. Initiallly he lived in silence among a community of monks but later went off after Makarios the Great to the Wadi el Natrun and el-Rayyan in the Beheira desert towards the north-west of the Nile delta to live alone. There were three main centres of Nitric monks- in Natrun, Nitria proper and Kellia. This particular area is also called “sketis” (Σκήτη) which gives us the name often used on the Holy mountain to refer to the dwelling of a hermit or ascetic, a “skete”.. From the word “Kellia”, though., the Latin church derives the term “cell”.The caves were abandoned in the 6th or 7th centuries.

The area was, incidentally, where the author of the “petit prince” crashed in 1935.

Makarios attracted attention for his extreme asceticism. At one point during Lent, his fellow monks called on the abbot St Pachomius to get rid of him because he seemed neither to eat, drink nor to sit down. He spent his days standing up and weaving baskets from palm leaves.

At the end of his life, he was exiled with Makarios the Great by the Emperor Valens. They were sent to a small island in the Nile delta because of their support of the teachings of St Athanasius the Great against the Arians. A pagan Priest’s daughter suffered terribl;e seizures there and the two Makarii were able to heal her. In gratitude the pagans tore down their shrine and built a church. As a result the authorities recognised that they were punishing holy men and sent them both back to their own caves.

The monastery of St Makarios lies about 92 km to the west of Cairo. It has been undergoing restoration since the late 1960s on the orders of Patriarch Cyril V. Relics of St John the Baptist and the Prophet Elisha have been found there. Regarding the life of the monastery, the abbot is on record saying “we never divide the material and spiritual. Our whole life, even in its most material details, must contribute towards the spiritual progress of each monk and the whole community towards the worship of God, ‘to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ’ (Eph. 4:12). It is our deep conviction that we attain our heavenly vocation through the carrying out of these commonplace tasks on earth.

“This unity between the material and the spiritual in our lives is an important principle in our spirituality, and is the reason why the spiritual father’s direction is not restricted to the inner life, but extends to every detail of material, psychological and physical life. It is also the reason why we have no strict timetable separating times for prayer from times for work. However diverse our occupations during the day, we believe that we all have before us one essential task to which we must constantly address ourselves, whether we be at work, in our cells or in church, and that is to offer ourselves up as a sacrifice of love to the Lord Jesus, lifting up our hearts in unceasing prayer, and remaining continuously at peace, even in the midst of hard work, with the peace of Christ that passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7).”

There is a third Makarios, “the younger” who spent 23 years atoning for a murder. During this time, he never spoke. This places him alonside Myra Hindley and Ian Brady rather than the saints but there we are!