Cyprus Armenians return to occupied monastery after 33 years

p?id=6853&type=st
06/05/2007

Two hundred Armenians returned to the abandoned medieaval monastery of
Saint Magar in the Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus Sunday
where prayers were said for the first time in 33 years.

The pilgrims, most of whom used to spend holidays at the monastery up
until the Turkish invasion in 1974, traveled in a convoy of five buses
escorted by a United Nations patrol and Turkish Cypriot police.

But despite the anticipation of return, the enthusiasm of many was
dashed by the poor state of the church and the destruction of all
inscriptions by prospective developers who had earlier set their
sights on transforming the monastery to a casino.

The looting of the site since the war that divided the island, had
also taken its toll on the buildings, many of which had no roof and
could fall within a few years, some bystanders said.

Archbishop Varoujan Hergelian led those present in a prayer of grace,
`Hayr Mer’ in Armenian, while some had brought candles with them to
mark the holy day of the monastery’s saint, a Coptic recluse named
Makarius, who had lived in the caves below the present site of the
monastery in the twelfth century.

`I held service and performed my last christening here in 1973,’ added
Hergelian, who had traveled in civilian clothes so as not to incite
any reaction from Islamists or Turkish nationalists living in nearby
villages.

`It is in a tragic condition,’ he said, adding that the baptismal was
totally defaced from his last visit to the derelict monastery three
years ago.

But the issue of reconstruction of the monastery dating back to 1642
is highly unlikely as the U.N. must ask the Turkish forces for
permission since the buildings and the 9,000-acre estate of olive,
citrus and carob trees that leads down to the northern sea shore, lies
within a military zone and near a Turkish Army camp near Halefka in
the Kyrenia mountain range.

`We only managed to halt the plans for development by the intervention
of the Vatican,’ said the Armenian deputy in the House of
Representatives, Vartkes Mahdessian, who had organised the trip.

Previous members of the Cypriot parliament had sought the intervention
of the Council of Europe when Turkish Cypriot developers allegedly won
the privatisation license for the land and advertised plans for a
casino, hotel and leisure cafeterias.

`I remember coming here with the scouts from the Armenian AYMA club
and we used to meet scouts from the Melkonian school,’ Mahdessian
said, adding that other youth groups also camped at the monastery
during weekends and summer holidays, often accompanied by the then
pastor of the community, Father Vazken Sandrouni.

`I will try to organise a similar pilgrimage next year as well as we
must r emind ourselves of our heritage before the older generations
start to disappear,’ the member of parliament said.

Among the crowd was Stephan Bahdjejian, a veteran who served in the
French Army during the second World War but remained tearful from
seeing the destruction of the monastery he visited every month before
the Turkish invasion.

`Only animals would cause this destruction,’ he said.