Les Cryptos-Chrétiens de Karpass

Author’s Note

This text was written in October 2008, shortly after the opening of the Green Line in Nicosia. It reflects an assessment, testimonies and perceptions specific to that period. Since then, the political, social and human situation on the island has evolved. The reader is therefore invited to approach it as a document rooted in a particular context, which no longer reflects with complete accuracy the present-day reality of Cyprus.

It is customary to refer to the inhabitants of Cyprus using two demonyms, namely Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots. Reference is often made to “two Cypruses”, that of the south and that of the north. It is not uncommon, either, for foreigners, including in the media, to speak of a Greek Cyprus and a Turkish Cyprus. This misuse of language is often the result of an inadequate understanding of the island’s current partition, but it may also be entirely deliberate, as part of propaganda intended to legitimise the partition and the occupation of the north of this country by the Republic of Türkiye.

I would remind the reader that Cyprus is a nation that has suffered a partition, which I shall not set out within the scope of this article, but that the terms North Cyprus, South Cyprus, Greek Cyprus or Turkish Cyprus are devoid of meaning, both politically and historically.

Qualifying the demonym in this manner is senseless. The inhabitants of Cyprus ought to be called Cypriots, irrespective of the language they use in daily life. In this article I shall use the designations Greek-speaking Cypriots and Turkish-speaking Cypriots, albeit these are reductive, because, as we shall see, the language spoken day to day is not, either, a wholly pertinent criterion. Indeed, many Turkish-speakers are not Cypriots, and many so-called “Turkish” Cypriots are perfectly Greek-speaking. They command the Cypriot idiom so well that it is sometimes impossible to determine their origin. I can cite the case of several friends in the Polis Chrysochous area.

Part of the present-day community of Turkish Cypriots derives from the conversion to Islam of Christians living on the island (Catholics and Maronites). These populations were converted during the sixteenth century of our era. From that point onwards, they remained in close contact with the Turks of Anatolia, contacts that intensified over the last thirty years following the policy of Turkification in Cyprus pursued by the Turkish Republic and then by the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” (a state born of partition and recognised only by Türkiye).

This policy led to changes in the island’s toponymy, most Greek villages in the north of the country having been renamed since 1974. The traces are plainly visible in the streets of the former villages that were predominantly Greek prior to the military operation “Attila”. Propaganda is not lacking on either side of the Green Line: on the Greek side, to denounce a change in the island’s identity; on the Turkish side, to extol incessantly the supposed virtues of the 1974 peace operation.

The street signs in northern villages still reveal the former Greek indications, as is the case in the former mixed villages of Yialousa and Rizokarpaso.

 

the former Greek street sign in blue that has not been removed

What can be said about the island’s linguistic situation?

To which identity do the two protagonists refer? I am not a Turkish-speaker, and I therefore ask my readers to excuse me for venturing onto a delicate path outside my field of expertise. If I cannot assess with complete objectivity the extent to which Turkish-speaking Cypriots speak a language identical to that of the Turkish Republic, I can, however, bear witness to my own experience drawn from these thirty years spent in Cyprus, in the Polis Chrysochous region.

I have often emphasised, but it is worth recalling once again, the difficulty, indeed the impossibility, of attributing physical criteria to Cypriots, whether “Greek” or “Turkish”. It is therefore illusory to seek to distinguish them, unless one hears them speak one of the country’s two languages. Yet this criterion is not, either, decisive. Indeed, many Turkish Cypriots speak the local idiom, “kypriaki”, fluently, and some older Greek-speakers speak Turkish. I recall telling a Greek from Limassol, who came every summer on holiday to the Akamas peninsula, that one of my friends was a Turkish Cypriot from the village of Androlikou. He had known him for years without ever imagining for a moment that he was dealing with one of his “Turkish Cypriot” compatriots, who had always lived in the south; nothing physical distinguished him from Greeks. Nor did he hesitate to punctuate his sentences with many “Ah Panaya! Panaya!”, meaning “Virgin Mary” in Greek, an expression not particularly characteristic of the spontaneous speech of a Sunni Muslim.

On another occasion, I lost my way in the northern part of Nicosia. I was desperately looking for the Ledra crossing point when I came across children playing in the street. I addressed their mother in English. Quite unusually for Cyprus, she did not speak that language. In an attempt to bring our mutual incomprehension to an end, she asked me directly: “Ξέρετε Ελληνικά;” (Do you know Greek?). I replied: “ναι, μιλάω ελληνικά” (Yes, I speak Greek). She could not conceal her surprise, as any Cypriot would when a foreigner is able to decipher their alphabet or to utter a reply in their language, even with syntax that is most often approximate. She then indicated, in impeccable Greek, how to reach the checkpoint.

That year, I decided to spend a week in the Karpas peninsula, at the far east of the island. My knowledge of Turkish being limited to roughly a single phrase, namely “Lütfen, bir bardak çay” (please, a glass of tea), I was soon compelled to express myself in English or in Greek. In a taverna, I was once again confronted with the problem of the language barrier. On a whim, I ordered my meal in Greek. The waiter rewarded me with a genuine smile, conveying astonishment mixed with gratitude. He called out to the owner in Greek, in a loud voice, to tell him that an Italian customer spoke Greek.

A man in his sixties came over to me, speaking this time in perfect English, to the point that I thought I was dealing with a Briton. He told me his name was Hassan and that he had lived thirty-seven years in Great Britain before returning to settle in the Karpas peninsula. I explained, in turn, that I was not Italian and that the language he believed he had recognised was French. It should be said, in his defence, that French tourists and residents were at that time virtually absent from northern Cyprus.

We spoke together at length. When I expressed surprise at the presence of pork on his menu, he began by explaining that it was intended primarily for tourists, but that he also ate it willingly. “Cypriots are not good Muslims,” he concluded, by way of a confession.

I asked him whether there were still some Greeks in the surrounding villages. He immediately corrected me: “There are not just a few Greeks! There are many Greeks here! They are good people; they go to church every Sunday! My restaurant is full of Greeks on Sundays!”

 

The Karpas peninsula seen from the Monastery of Apostolos Andreas

It is true that bilingual signs are numerous in the Karpas peninsula. Most often, they are restaurants offering fish or “Klephtico”, a lamb speciality baked in the oven, typically Greek, whose name is linked to the turbulent relations

between Greeks and Turks.*

Advertising sign for a restaurant

Nevertheless, the situation is less idyllic than that described by the owner of that taverna. The Karpas peninsula, which will, beyond doubt, in the very near future become one of the island of Cyprus’s finest holiday destinations, is above all known for sheltering a community of enclaved Greeks. The census of 30 June 1994 gave the following figures:

• RIZOKARPASO: 355
• KORMAKITIS: 159
• AGIA TRIAS: 134
• KARPASEIA: 24
• ASOMATOS: 13
• LEONARISSO: 6
• AGIOS ANDRONIKOS: 6
• AGIOS THERISSOS: 6
• MONASTERY OF APOSTOLOS ANDREAS: 4
• KERYNEIA: 4

TOTAL: 717

The number of Greek Cypriots has sharply declined since 1976, this minority having been subjected to pressures of every kind intended to encourage them to join the area controlled by the government of the Republic of Cyprus. This population, composed essentially of rural people, had remained in their villages of origin after the events of 1974. The various forms of harassment to which they were subjected by the TRNC authorities brought about a drastic reduction in their number, from 12,289 people in 1974 to around 700 individuals today, with United Nations forces providing them with food supplies.

Nevertheless, the accession of the Republic of Cyprus to Europe and the Turkish Republic’s ambition to join the European Community have helped to improve the situation of this population. Permission to build a secondary school for the younger generations has been granted recently. Moreover, the opening of the border enables them to have more frequent contact with members of their families who have moved to the south.

The problem of the enclaved population has, however, been the subject of agreements and countless declarations of good intent. As early as 1975, the third Vienna Agreement, concluded between Glafcos Clerides and Rauf Denktaş, respectively President of the Republic of Cyprus and leader of the Turkish Cypriots, provided for the following: Turkish Cypriots living in the south could move to the north with their possessions. Rauf Denktaş reaffirmed that Greek Cypriots living in the north were free to remain there, and that assistance would be provided so that they might lead a “normal life”. This term indicated that the practice of their religion would not be prohibited, that they would have access to medical care, freedom of movement in the north, and the possibility of educational establishments in their own language.

Under the provisions of that agreement, priority was to be given to the reunification of families, which implied the transfer of Greek Cypriots from the south to the north. In practice, these agreements were never implemented by Rauf Denktaş’s administration. A United Nations report recorded persistent human-rights violations and problems both for the physical security of the Greek minority and for their property. The conclusions of that report were confirmed on 9 October 1983 by the European Commission, which reported deprivations of property, looting and discrimination carried out by Turkish soldiers.

The situation would appear calmer today. Back in Nicosia, as I dined in a restaurant frequented by refugees from that part of Cyprus, one of the diners, who also came from that region, told me of the existence of crypto-Christianity in northern Cyprus, stating that most Turkish Cypriots of the Karpas peninsula were, in essence, former Christian families converted to Islam in the sixteenth century.

This was not in itself surprising, given that the Latin Church had been driven out of Cyprus by the Ottomans, its adherents being forced into conversion or exile. Beyond doubt, families must certainly have chosen the religion of the new masters, all the more so because adherence to this new faith afforded easier access to the Ottoman administration and, above all, lighter taxes for dhimmis. This measure was directed solely at the Latin Church and received the assent of the Orthodox clergy, whose powers were, by contrast, increased by the Ottomans.

It is therefore highly probable, not to say certain, that many Turkish-speaking Muslim families are the direct descendants of Venetian, Armenian and French families who occupied the island for centuries. It is also interesting to note that many Orthodox Greeks bear surnames that indubitably connect them to Islam.

A mosaic in the palaeo-Christian church of Agia Trias, in the Karpas peninsula, depicting sandals, a symbol of pilgrims. Greek names constructed around the Semitic root “hadj” (meaning pilgrim), such as Hadjicostas, Hadjiantonas, Hadjipanayis and Hadjipoulos, leave little doubt as to the religious affiliation of their ancestors. I would refer interested readers to Alkan Chaglari’s excellent article in English on this subject.

Conversion is a common and complex phenomenon, proselytism being viewed in differing ways by the three religions of the Book. The reasons are multiple and lie beyond the scope of this article. Nevertheless, whilst conversion and its motives are well documented in the literature, the same cannot be said of clandestine religious practices. The use of the prefix “crypto” is not neutral, for it refers to the transmission of secret rites linked to a family’s original religion. The best-known of these practices is Marranism, to which I devoted a few lines in my article on the Venice ghetto on this same website.

I must admit that I had never heard the term crypto-Christianity mentioned before I went to Cyprus. I do not know whether there are still cases of the secret transmission of Christian rites among Turkish families in Cyprus, this information being particularly difficult to verify owing to the intrinsically covert nature of a tradition that aims precisely to give the appearance of conformity to the official practitioners of a majority confession. I do not rule it out, for certain behaviours among Turkish Cypriots might suggest that this phenomenon still exists.

Like Spanish families of Jewish ancestry (it is worth recalling that proven cases of Marranism still existed in the Iberian Peninsula until 1930), certain Turkish Cypriot families in these regions are reluctant to marry Anatolians and continue to speak Greek commonly. Local rumour maintains (I have not been able to verify this personally) that the Turkish army compelled villagers in that region to remain in place, lifting this restriction on movement only once they had learned to speak Turkish. I do not know whether this information is accurate. However, there are signs that do not deceive.

The village of Agia Trias (the Holy Trinity), with so Christian a name, was almost exclusively composed of Turkish Cypriots before 1974; it is, moreover, still one of the rare mixed villages in the north. One source estimated, in the nineteenth century, between 10,000 and 15,000 crypto-Christians in Cyprus out of a total of 32,000 Muslims. These crypto-Christians, on the boundary of two identities, were called the “Linovamvakoi”, literally “linen and cotton”, in reference to a garment made from a mixture of fibres (linen, lino, and cotton, vamvaki).

This name will, beyond doubt, delight exegetical readers, for it makes an explicit reference to the Talmud, which expressly prohibits Jews from wearing garments woven of linen and cotton, employing in Hebrew both the adverb yaḥdaw (together) and the noun sha‘atnez, denoting a mixed fabric. We are dealing with a sign of the influence of the third religion of the Book, given that the prohibition on wearing garments made of mixed fibres does not apply to Gentiles.

Other cultural interpenetrations deserve to be noted, in particular the Cypriot wedding rite. This rite is still practised today by both Greeks and Turks, for it is not confessional, being performed after the religious ceremony. The future spouses, having just concluded their union within their specific religious rite, generally publish a notice in the local press indicating the date of their union, in order to invite all the villagers, who then attend the celebration. Family ties are not required in order to attend the wedding. All guests who attend must bring an envelope containing money, the amount being proportionate to the closeness of their relationship to the couple.

It is not uncommon to find up to five hundred people invited to a wedding. It is customary to attend even if one does not necessarily know the couple intimately. At the beginning of the ceremony, the bride and groom greet all the guests beneath a wedding canopy, which is reminiscent of the Jewish chuppah. Guests take the opportunity to hand over their envelope. The wedding meal is very simple: it consists of “klephtiko”, “resi” (a wheat purée) and “korabiédes” (almond pastries).

The guests then dance the “tsifteteli”, a traditional dance whose name is derived from two Turkish words meaning çifte (double) and telli (strings). Then, to the traditional air of the wedding song, the rite of the “choros tou androginou” is performed, consisting of guests pinning banknotes onto the bride and groom. The ceremony ends, as in Judaism, with the breaking under the heel of a cup or a glass.

The similarities with Judaism are such that they cannot be the product of chance. Borrowings from Turkish culture are so significant (music, dance, cuisine) that they become fully constitutive of local culture. The way of life of the two communities is identical. In the villages of northern Cyprus, now occupied predominantly by Turks, the former Greek kafénio often serves as a Turkish kahvesi; this is the case in the village of Yeni Erenköy. The former Greek kafénio that has become the kahvesi in Yeni Erenköy. Cypriot “cognac”, served at the end of the meal in tavernas in both the north and the south.

More things bring Greeks and Turks in Cyprus together than separate them. Their way of life is identical: their cuisine, their deep attachment to family values, certain rites. Even today, it is impossible to distinguish a mosque from a church before the minaret or the bell tower has been completed. It is well known that Greeks used to take part, with their Turkish neighbours, in traditional festivities derived from Islam.

Cypriot identity was forged in the heart of the Near East, on an island crossed by all the influences of a region that is the cradle of the three monotheisms. It is not possible to undertake a serious study of the Cypriot tradition without moving from one culture to another, so extensive is their interpenetration. If there is, beyond doubt, a cultural specificity in this country, it is the product of hundreds, indeed thousands, of years of cultural exchange among elements of classical culture, the philosophy of Hellenised Jews, Byzantine, Latin, Venetian and Ottoman culture, and, finally, the influence of British occupation, which has left, besides driving on the left, the practice of English, which has almost acquired the status of a third official language.

This conflict, like many others, is fratricidal. Yet Cyprus is like the East: a cultural crucible, a crossroads of civilisations which, far from ceaselessly hating one another throughout their history, developed a common and complex identity. The history of humanity is often written in blood and tears, but also through intercommunal exchange, the particularity of one being absorbed into the nation created by the other, to the point that one can no longer distinguish cotton from linen, to paraphrase the Talmud.

May this conflict between brothers, born of the same Mediterranean culture, sharpen our vigilance. I write these lines a few days after the government of my country decided to vote through an amendment on DNA that awakens demons one believed definitively asleep. The immigration of one era builds the culture of the future. The culture of a nation is, happily, the adulterine offspring of earlier traditions. It will always be so, notwithstanding the political provisions of nostalgics for police regimes, who, in barely veiled terms, inflame the myth of blood purity. Let us always keep in mind this universal maxim: it is always easier to destroy than to build.

Jean-Marc Cavalier Lachgar

October 2008

 

Links: Crypto-Christians in Türkiye on Istanbul guide.net

http://www.toplumpostasi.net/index.php/cat/1/col/85/art/965/PageName/Ana_sayfa i “Klephtico” can be translated as “stolen meat”, in reference to the Greek term “klepht” meaning bandits. The terms kleptomaniac and kleptomania derive from this root. The klephts were bandits who organised vendettas against Ottoman officials. Tradition has it that, as the klephts did not own herds, they slow-smoked meat in small pits, in order not to be detected by cooking smoke. Many klephts took part in the Greek War of Independence.