Makarios III (born Michael Christodoulou Mouskos; 13 August 1913 – 3 August 1977) was a Greek Cypriot prelate and politician who served as Archbishop of the Church of Cyprus from 1950 to 1977 and as the first president of Cyprus between 1960 and July 1974, with a second term between December 1974 and 1977. He is widely regarded as the founding father or "Ethnarch" of the Republic of Cyprus, leading its transition from British colonial rule.
Early life, studies and Church career (1913–1950)
Michael Christodoulou Mouskos was born in Panayia village in the Paphos District of Cyprus, which was then part of the British Protectorate. In 1926, aged 13, he was admitted to Kykkos Monastery as a novice. At age 20 he was sent to the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia where he completed his secondary education in 1936. He studied theology and law at the University of Athens during World War II, graduating in 1942. He took up the duties of a priest in the Cypriot Orthodox Church while sustaining an interest in academic theology; he received a World Council of Churches scholarship to undertake further study at Boston University in Massachusetts.
In 1948, while still studying at Boston, he was elected Bishop of Kition against his will. Mouskos adopted, as his clerical name, an old Greek given name Makários (Μακάριος) meaning "happy, fortunate, blessed". He then returned to Cyprus. Like many public figures in the Greek Cypriot community in Cyprus in the 1940s and 1950s, he was an active supporter of enosis, the union of Cyprus with the Kingdom of Greece.
Enosis and EOKA (1950–1955) On 18 September 1950, Makarios, 37 years old, was elected Archbishop of Cyprus. In this role he was not only the official head of the Orthodox Church in Cyprus, but became the Ethnarch, de facto national leader of Cypriots. This highly influential position put Makarios at the centre of Cypriot politics.
During the 1950s, Makarios embraced his dual role as Archbishop and Ethnarch with enthusiasm and became a very popular figure among Greek Cypriots. He soon became a leading advocate for enosis (the unification of Cyprus with Greece), and during the early part of the decade he maintained close links with the Greek government. In August 1954, partly at Makarios' instigation, Greece began to raise the question of Cyprus at the United Nations, arguing for the principle of self-determination to be applied to Cyprus. This was viewed by advocates of enosis as likely to result in the voluntary union of Cyprus with Greece following a public referendum.
However, the British government was reluctant to decolonise the island which had become their new headquarters for the Middle East. In 1955, a pro-enosis organization was formed under the banner of Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston (National Organization of Cypriot Fighters), or EOKA. This was a typical independence movement of the period. Makarios undoubtedly had common political ground with EOKA and was acquainted with its leader, the Greek-Cypriot soldier and politician George Grivas, but the extent of his involvement is unclear and disputed. In later life he categorically denied any involvement in the violent resistance undertaken by EOKA.
Exile, escalation and Taksim (1955–1960)
On 20 August 1955, Greece submitted a petition to the United Nations requesting the application of the principle of self-determination to the people of Cyprus. After that, the colonial government of Cyprus enforced the anti-sedition laws for the purpose of preventing or suppressing demonstrations in favor of union with Greece; but the archbishop defied them and continued demanding self-determination for Cyprus.
In October 1955, with the security situation deteriorating, the British governor, Sir John Harding, opened talks on the island's future. By this stage, Makarios had become closely identified with the insurgency, and talks broke up without any agreement in early 1956. Makarios, vilified in the British press and viewed with suspicion by the British authorities, was abducted by Special Branch officers while attempting to board a flight at Nicosia airport. The joint police/military plan, codenamed Operation Apollo, saw Makarios exiled to Mahe Island in the Seychelles on 9 March 1956, as a 'guest' of Sir William Addis, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of the Seychelles. The Archbishop and his staff were flown to Aden and then on to Mombasa. At the Kenyan port the party were embarked in the East African Shakespearian-class trawler HMEAS Rosalind, escorted by the frigate HMS Loch Fada. The flotilla arrived in Port Victoria on 14 March.
In the latter years of the 1950s, the Turkish Cypriot community first began to float the idea of Taksim or partition, as a counterweight to the Greek ideal of enosis or union. Advocates of Taksim felt that the Turkish Cypriot community would be persecuted in a Greek Cyprus, and that only by keeping part of the island under either British or Turkish sovereignty could the safety of the Turkish Cypriots be guaranteed. In this way the Cyprus dispute became increasingly polarized between two communities with opposing visions of the future of the island.
Makarios was released from exile after a year, although he was still forbidden to return to Cyprus. He went instead to Athens, where he was rapturously received. Basing himself in the Greek capital, he continued to work for enosis. During the following two years he attended the General Assembly of the United Nations where the Cyprus question was discussed; and he worked hard to achieve union with Greece.
Under the premiership of Konstantinos Karamanlis in Greece, the goal of enosis was gradually abandoned in favour of Cypriot independence. Negotiations in 1958 generated the Zurich Agreement as a basis for a deal on independence, and Makarios was invited to London in 1959 to fine-tune the plan. Makarios at first refused to accept the plan. The reversal of his self-determination or enosis stance, and his eventual agreement to sign the conditions for the independence of Cyprus, have been attributed to blackmail on behalf of the Greek and British governments.
A 1965 article in the Western Political Quarterly described the constitution as "wobbly", and attributed the civil conflict of 1963 to this quality.
On 1 March 1959, the archbishop returned to Cyprus to an unprecedented reception in Nicosia, where almost two-thirds of the adult Greek Cypriot population turned out to welcome him. Presidential elections were held on 13 December 1959, in which Makarios defeated his rival, lawyer Ioannis Clerides, father of future president and Makarios ally Glafcos Clerides, receiving two-thirds of the vote. Makarios was to become the political leader of all Cyprus as well as the communal leader of the Greek Cypriots.
Primacy and presidency (1960–1963)
After his election Makarios, together with the vice-president-elect, Fazıl Küçük, continued to draw up plans for Cyprus's future. By now, Makarios had accepted that enosis was not to be, and that the only outcome which could secure harmony in Cyprus was robust independence. Taking office on 16 August 1960, the day the Union Flag was lowered in Nicosia, Makarios moved towards the moderate centre of Cypriot politics and now pursued a policy of non-alignment, cultivating good relations with Turkey as well as Greece and becoming a high-profile member of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
In March 1961, Cyprus was admitted as a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations and Makarios represented the island at the 1961 Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference. He attended the 1st Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in Belgrade in September 1961, and troubled the governments in London and Washington, D.C. with his lukewarm policy towards the West. During his stay in Belgrade, alongside the conference he also led the liturgical celebration at the St. Michael's Cathedral of the Serbian Orthodox Church. This was seen in the U.S. as demonstrating a tendency towards communism; Makarios was now being vilified in the American press as the "Castro of the Mediterranean" although he had by now been rehabilitated in the British press and was affectionately nicknamed "Black Mak" on account of his clerical garb.
But the idea of an independent path for Cyprus had not taken root among the general public at home. There was increasing acrimony between Turkish and Greek Cypriots about the workings of the constitution, and Makarios was forced to act to salvage the machinery of state from imminent collapse. In November 1963, Makarios proposed thirteen amendments to the Constitution, which would free many public offices from the ethnic restrictions agreed in London and Zurich. This, he argued, would allow the government to operate more efficiently, and bring together the communities by dissolving rigid inter-ethnic legal boundaries. However, the amendments were seen by many Turkish Cypriots as threatening constitutional protections against domination by the majority Greek Cypriots.The Main Narrative, continued The Cyprus Conflict
In response to Makarios' proposals, most Turkish Cypriots in public office, including Vice-President Küçük, resigned; large numbers of Turkish Cypriots moved out of ethnically mixed areas into villages and towns where the population was already largely Turkish Cypriot. There is still dispute over the motives for this, some arguing that it was made necessary by the intimidation of the Turkish Cypriots by the Greek Cypriots; others suggest that the Turkish community was sabotaging the Cypriot settlement and already preparing for partition by Turkey. By the end of 1963, intercommunal violence had broken out once again.
Makarios and the Cyprus problem (1964–1977)
The political landscape in Cyprus remained intractable. UN peacekeeping operations (UNFICYP) commenced in 1964 and helped to soothe, but not solve, the situation. Makarios continued his high-profile neutrality, but ultimately failed either to reassure the Turkish Cypriots that they were safe in an independent Cyprus, or to convince the Greek Cypriots that independence was a satisfactory alternative to assimilation within a Greater Greece.
President Makarios, seeking a fresh mandate from his constituency, announced in January 1968 that elections would be held during February. Makarios received 220,911 votes (about 96 percent), and his opponent, Takis Evdokas, who ran on a platform for unification with Greece, received 8,577 votes. Even though there were 16,215 abstentions, Makarios' overwhelming victory was seen as a massive endorsement of his personal leadership and of an independent Cyprus. At his investiture, the president stated that the Cyprus problem could not be solved by force, but had to be worked out within the framework of the UN. He also said that he and his followers wanted to live peacefully in a unitary state where all citizens enjoyed equal rights. Some Cypriots opposed Makarios' conciliatory stance (and there was an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate him in 1970).
In 1967, a military junta seized power in Athens, and the relationship between the regime and Makarios was tense. Makarios held that the regime undermined his authority by supporting paramilitary organizations committed to enosis.
During the summer of 1971, tension built up between the two Cypriot communities, and incidents became more numerous. Sometime in the late summer or early autumn, Grivas (who had attacked Makarios as a traitor in an Athens newspaper) returned secretly to the island and began to rebuild his guerrilla organization, which became known as the National Organization of Cypriot Fighters (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston B, aka EOKA B). Three new newspapers advocating enosis were also established; all of these activities were funded by the military junta in Greece.