Awakening in Paphos

On our first visit to Paphos. my wife and I had driven through the town, aware only of the football-addicted tourists in Kato Paphos, congratulating ourselves that we'd not chosen to spend our holiday there, and then succumbing to a taste of luxury with tea and cakes by a five-star hotel pool.

Yes, we had poked our noses into the mosaic house but, tired tourists as we were, we hadn't even tried to savour the aroma of history that has persisted in Paphos and its hinterland for thousands of years. It needed the invitation and enthusiasm of new friends to awaken my dulled senses.

They took us first to Kourion where it was not long before the sophistication of the buildings, mosaics and air conditioning system began to humble me. With the backdrop of a stunning, commanding view over sea and land, one friend delighted us by demonstrating the superb acoustics of the amphitheatre; he sang, O Holy Night.

My hardened soul began, as it were, to crumble as I became aware of another fact, nay, another dimension. To my shame I had quite forgotten that Paul and Barnabas had begun their first missionary journey on Cyprus. Tradition has it that the two missionaries fled to Kourion when Paphos became too dangerous for them.

I “woke up”. I found myself no longer a tourist but a pilgrim. At the time I didn't express my feelings in those, perhaps pompous terms; all I knew was that my whole perception and appreciation of what I was seeing and treading on was changing. I didn't understand, but change there was.
We moved on into Paphos, the Kato Paphos that Vieno and I had ignorantly dismissed as a den of tourists, and found ourselves in the ancient Orthodox Church by St. Paul's Pillar, (Anglicans, Catholics and Lutherans also worship there). Paul is reputed to have been whipped at a stone pillar that is now surrounded by the ruins of the 4th C Basilica and a Gothic church.

A new sense of continuity with the past, with the early Church, began to seep into my consciousness. Landing in Salamis, Paul and Barnabas had preached the length of the island and sailed to Turkey from the harbour 200 meters away.
Luke doesn't record either Paul's whipping here or his fleeing to Kourion. But, then, Acts tells of only two encounters on the island. But there in Paphos – indeed all over Cyprus – are churches no doubt planted by or as a result of the two missionaries' work.

Perhaps I felt the impact so intensely because I had been reading the Early Christian Writings of St Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp. Perhaps it was because of my recently awakened realisation that Christianity hadn't begun with Calvin and Luther! I felt 'grounded' in my faith as never before.

Somehow, this awareness was of a different order from that which I experienced in Israel. Yes, my imagination was illumined and my faith strengthened where Jesus had walked. But only in Paphos did I realise that I had missed the continuity from Jesus and his life, death, resurrection and Ascension to the church today; to me, today.

There on Cyprus where, compared with Turkey, the Christian faith still thrives, after thousands of years, I was part of the whole company of saints who have trod this way. There, where it is often difficult to understand and partake in Orthodox worship, there was continuity, a clear unbroken line from Jesus to me.

Two days later, our Greek Cypriot neighbours told us about the Turkish invasion in 1974. John and Irene had only recently moved from Britain to re-settle in their homeland, near Kyrenia on the north coast. John's new car showroom was doing well and they had their first baby when the invasion began. John asked the British why they didn't stop the Turks; they had orders not to resist. John, Irene and their ten week old child joined the mass exodus as the Turks forced them to head south. Thirty years on, the pain is still deep; their house is now occupied by Turks. The Orthodox Churches there have been destroyed, some being used as stables and urinals. Priceless paintings, icons and artefacts were either defaced or stolen.

At Christmas, the Greek Orthodox Archbishop pleaded once again with the Turks to allow the Greek Cypriots to repair their churches. Once again the Turks refused, even though the Greek Cypriots have cared for the mosques in the South.

The USA and the UK were complicit in the Turkish invasion, so what hope is there that being in the EU will protect the Republic from the same mindless attempt to destroy Christianity, as has been the aim in the North and mainland Turkey? That clear unbroken line from Jesus to me that I felt in Cyprus may soon be a dream.

Reg Kennedy