Makarios III

Michaíl Christodulu Muskos (in Greek: μιχαήλ χριστοδούλου b> In his ecclesiastical role, he was a Greek Cypriot leader, archbishop and primate of the Cypriot Orthodox Church and first president of the Republic of Cyprus.

Childhood and youth

Son of a goat herder, in 1926 he entered the Orthodox Monastery of Kikkos as a novice, when he was 13 years old. At the age of 20 he was sent to Nicosia, to the Pancypriot Gymnasium, where he completed his secondary education in 1936. He was ordained a deacon in 1938, and settled for the next five years in Athens to study Theology and Law at the University of Athens. graduating in 1942. In 1946 he was ordained a priest of the Cypriot Orthodox Church.

He completed advanced studies at Boston University, where he returned in 1948, when he was appointed bishop of Kition and took the name Makarios.

Enosis and EOKA

On September 18, 1950, he was elected archbishop and primate, replacing Makarios II. This appointment not only made him head of the Cypriot Orthodox Church but also ethnarch, the de facto national leader of the Greek Cypriot community.

At that time, and since 1878, the island of Cyprus was a colony of the British Empire, which had made it its center of operations in relation to the Middle East.

During the 1950s Makarios became a popular figure among Greek Cypriots and, like many public figures in his community at the time, was a strong supporter and one of the leading advocates of enosis (union of Cyprus with Greece), maintaining close ties with the Greek Government. In August 1954, at the request of Makarios, Greece began to support at the UN the holding of a plebiscite based on the principle of self-determination for the Cypriots. They were met with opposition from the British colonial authorities.

In 1955 the pro-enosis organization Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston (National Organization of Cypriot Fighters) was formed. The EOKA was a typical independence movement of the time. Makarios shared its political platform and knew its leader, the Greek politician and soldier Georgios Grivas, but the extent of his involvement is unclear. In later life he categorically denied being involved in the EOKA's violent resistance.

Exile and Taksim

At the end of 1955 the British colonial authorities strengthened anti-sedition laws to prevent demonstrations, but Makarios continued to demand self-determination for Cyprus. In the midst of a tense situation, British Governor John Harding opened talks to discuss the future of the island, but these broke down in early 1956 without reaching any agreement. The British offered self-government to the Greek majority and Makarios accepted it in principle, but asked for guarantees that the British were not willing to give.

By then Makarios was identified as close to the insurgency. He was arrested at Nicosia airport accused of encouraging and maintaining contact with clandestine liberation groups. On March 9, 1956, he was forcibly exiled as a "guest" of the governor and commander in chief of the Seychelles Islands, William Addis, in said archipelago in the Indian Ocean.

At the end of the decade the Turkish Cypriot community began to promote the idea of Taksim (partition) as a counterpart to enosis. The Turkish Cypriot community feared that in an independent Cyprus controlled by the Greek Cypriot community they would be persecuted and that, therefore, their security on the island could only be guaranteed under British or Turkish sovereignty. The dispute between both communities festered.

A year later, Makarios was released but was still banned from returning to Cyprus. He went to Athens, where he was warmly received, and from there he continued working for enosis for the next two years. Under the government of Konstantinos Karamanlis, pressures from Greece to favor Cypriot independence began to relax.

The 1958 negotiations ended with the Zurich Agreement as the basis for an independence treaty, and Makarios was invited to London in 1959 to hammer out the details. Makarios refused to participate due to his preference for enosis, but was eventually persuaded by the Greek and British authorities. On March 1, the archbishop returned to Nicosia to be clamorously received by the crowd.

In the presidential elections of December 13, 1958, Archbishop Makarios defeated lawyer John Clerides, father of the future president and ally of Makarios, Glafcos Clerides, by two-thirds of the votes.

Primacy and presidency

On August 16, 1960, the British flag was lowered for the last time in Nicosia and Makarios took office as president, exercising a moderate policy, cultivating good relations with both Greece and neighboring Turkey and distinguishing himself in the Non-Country Movement. Aligned (MPNA).

In March 1961 Cyprus was admitted as a member of the Commonwealth of Nations and Makarios represented the island at the Commonwealth's conference of prime ministers. He also attended the MPNA conference in Belgrade.

Cyprus problem

Re-elected on two more occasions (February 1968 and February 18, 1973), he survived four assassination attempts and a coup d'état in 1974 sponsored by the Dictatorship of the Colonels of Greece, which would lead to the Turkish invasion of the island.

One of the assassination attempts that Makarios suffered was on March 8, 1970 at 7 in the morning. On that occasion, when taking off in a helicopter from the archbishopric bound for the Malrhaeras Monastery, he was shot from the roof of the Pancypriot Gymnasium. The pilot was seriously injured but was able to land in a nearby field. Makarios was unharmed. Six Greek Cypriots were arrested, three of them police officers.

Makarios fled to London on July 16, 1974, via Kikkos monastery and then Paphos, while the coup plotters announced that he had died. He returned to resume his position on November 7 of the same year. He suffered a heart attack in April 1977 and, after a second attack, died in Nicosia on August 3, 1977.