In a sermon that could be described as historic, Archbishop Elpidophoros of America called on the Hellenism of America not to forget the Turkish atrocities in Cyprus, talking about the mentality of the “sword of the conqueror” which is hidden behind the recent conversion of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople into a mosque.
“It is impossible to remain silent in the face of this injustice, it is impossible to remain silent when we see the history of nations to be written in blood. Some nations write the pages of their history with their own blood whereas other nations write the pages of their history with the blood of others,” Archbishop Elpidoforos said, adding that History is relentless.
“My brothers and sisters, the difference is big and History is relentless. History has no subjectivity, History sees everything and records it as it happens. The mentality of the conqueror, the mentality of the conquest, the sword of the conqueror, the law of the conqueror that governs even today is unfortunately the same with the mentality that converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque, it is the same mentality that dictated Turkey to invade an independent neighboring state and to sieze and occupy its northern part until today” he added.
Wearing, as he said, the engolpion that the Archbishop of Cyprus gave to him, whose pain and anguish for the solution of the Cyprus problem always echoes in his ears, the Archbishop of America clarified that “We will not be silent! The unjust will choke us but it will not kill us, it will not silence us, it will not shut our mouths.”
I am a refugee too
Archbishop Elpidophoros stressed to the expatriates who were present that the Cypriot issue does not concern only the Cypriot Hellenism but Hellenism around the world.
“As a citizen of Constantinople, I am a witness to what the Hellenism of Constantinople suffered when the Cyprus problem began and when it evolved with the invasion of Northern Cyprus,” the Archbishop said, adding: “I am a refugee too. We, as a family, were forced to abandon our homeland Constantinople after the occupation of Cyprus. I was a small child and we had to leave, to sell our house, all our belongings. We had to go to Greece as refugees to start a life from scratch, only with our bags and our clothes. Why? Because some peoples, as I said, distinguish in history for conquering monuments with their sword, whereas other peoples distinguish for building monuments of world culture and for creating culture. Not for conquering cultures and monuments that others built with the right of the sword and the blood that was shed in vain.”
The intervention of the Archbishop of America is perhaps the harshest intervention by an Archpriest of the Ecumenical Throne on both the issue of Cyprus and that of Hagia Sophia.
“It does not matter how many years pass, it does not matter how many people leave and how many stay. The only important thing is that those who leave hand over the baton to us who stay behind and keep it as a lit torch in order to claim all the injustices that took place against our Nation, at the expense of our culture and our race,” he noted characteristically.