Our View: New archbishop should avoid incendiary Cyprob comments

There had been a hope that the new Archbishop Georgios would have ended the practice of interfering in politics and making dogmatic pronouncements on the Cyprus issue, as his predecessors had done. It was time for the church to step back and focus on religious matters rather than persisting with imposing its hardline ideas on the politicians and making a mockery of the secular state.

Although Georgios does not speak publicly as often as his late predecessor, he still shares his belief that the archbishop has a duty to take a tough, patriotic stance on the Cyprus issue, opposing a settlement, irrespective of the plans of the elected government. It is as if the church is above the executive in the state hierarchy and sets the guidelines which the elected president should follow.

A perfect illustration of this attitude was provided by Archbishop Georgios on Tuesday after the service in a church in the mountains. Cyprus would become Turkish he said, “if we continue to beg for negotiations and make concessions for negotiations to start.” He urged the political leadership to change course on the Cyprus issue and expressed the wish that the Virgin Mary would make people realise that the objective was not to have a good time, but the liberation of Cyprus.

He did not deem it necessary to explain his pronouncements or to offer any suggestions as to how the people should go about achieving the objective of liberation. He was also openly criticising President Nikos Christodoulides, who has made the resumption of negotiations on the Cyprus problem his number one priority. Was Georgios suggesting that the elected president, who has been begging for negotiations to start, wants Cyprus to become Turkish?

The church should stay out of politics not only because the Republic is a secular state, but also because its leading role in politics, since before independence, has been an unmitigated disaster for the country. This dismal record should have made church leaders ineligible to offer any political advice – empty slogans, to be precise – to the country, and sit in judgement of the politicians.

This is a free and democratic country so the archbishop cannot be denied his right to speak out about issues of national concern. Ideally, he should stay out of politics, but if he is unable to do this, he needs to choose his words more carefully and show a degree of respect for the elected president. It is unacceptable for him to make sweeping statements about the Cyprus problem, claiming that Christodoulides’ policy would make Cyprus Turkish.

The problem is that all politicians show deference to the archbishop, instead of challenging his dogmatic nonsense. As result he is under the illusion he has the constitutional authority to speak like the overlord of the country. And he will carry on doing so for as long as no politician dares challenge him.