Hello everyone. I felt like shedding some light on a part of Cypriot history which has been essentially erased and forgotten, and the overwhelming majority of Cypriots is not aware of it. I think all of history, whether it is beautiful or ugly, is something worthy of study. It is about the oppression of the once larger maronite community during the ottoman empire, but this time not by the Ottomans!

This was written by a GC doctor and historian, Neoklis Kyriazis. I translated a portion of it which I think is worth thinking about.

Talking about the maronite village of Agios Romanos which is also called Vouno (Taşkent): "The desolation of this village is attributed to the oppression and the efforts of the Metropolitan of Kyrenia to deviate the Maronites towards orthodoxy, cooperating in this was Hadjigeorgakis (Kornesios), the dragoman, Hadjipetrakis from Kythrea, […] and others. After many efforts the priest of the church of Agios Romanos embraced orthodoxy, and the majority of the maronites, those who were left of the residents of the village, followed the example of the priest […], the property of the church got in the hands of the orthodox. During this time period, another loss was noted, the evacuation of Maronites from a large part of Kythrea and Kefalovryso"

by Hellowow3

1 comment

  1. The church of Ayios Romanos is still in Vouno village, it remained as a Maronite church until the invasion

    http://www.maronite-institute.org/MARI/JMS/april99/A_Visit_to_Some_of_the_Maronite.htm

    Archaeologist Monica Bardswell claims there were still Maronites in Vouno and Kythrea as late as the 1930s when she wrote, although I can’t find anything to confirm this. Another Archaeologist called Arnold Enklaar doesn’t mention Ayios Andronikos church in Kythrea at all, but does mention the Maronite chapel of Ayios Antonios and that it was rebuilt by the mayor of Kormakitis in the 1960s, and it has recently been restored.

    Maronites on Facebook largely seem to say that the Maronite priest of Kythrea became Orthodox around the turn of the 20th century, along with all the Maronite villagers. Some say that up until recently, people in Vouno and Kythrea said “our grandparents were Maronite and could speak your language”.

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