INTERNATIONAL LAW AND DIPLOMACY ON THE CYPRUS QUESTION

CHAPTER I: DIPLOMATIC CONTEXT TO THE CYPRUS QUESTION 7 completed by the beginning of the fifth century through the great ecclesiastical figures of the time, St. Barnabas, Lazarus, Spyridon of Trimithus, Philon of Karpasia, Tychon of Amathus and Epiphanios of Constantia. 9 On the laying of the foundations of the Byzantine Empire, in 330 A.D. Cyprus received special attention and protection by the emperors of Byzantium. 10 When Cyprus was a Byzantine province, the Arabs, who had accepted the religion of Islam raided at intervals Cyprus from the seventh to the tenth centuries and caused great destruction. But the Arabs never made an organised attempt to occupy Cyprus or acquire sovereignty over it and their activities were limited to looting and taking prisoners. 11 The Byzantine period of Cyprus came to an end with the reign of Isaac Comnenos. 12 Throughout the Byzantine period the Greek character of Cyprus was preserved in all its manifestations. 13 Richard sold Cyprus to Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalemand thus Cyprus became a Frankish Kingdom. The Lusignans ruled for about three hundred years (1192-1489) on the feudal system, all privileges belonging to the nobles whilst the people was oppressed without participation in the administration. The systemof administration was alien to the people of Cyprus. During the Frankish period the Greek Orthodox Church was in a state of persecution as the Latin Church was trying to subjugate it. 14 The last Queen of the Lusignan dynasty Catherine Cornaro ceded Cyprus to Venice 1n 1489, when the Lusignan domination of Cyprus ended. 15 The Venetian occupation of Cyprus had a purely military purpose that of defending the Venetian interests from any dangers that might come from Egypt and the Turks. 16 The Turks, who had captured Constantinople in1453, invaded Cyprus with powerful army in 1570 and, in spite of the defence put up by the Venetians, they captured Nicosia in the same year and in 1571 Famagusta fell after an heroic resistance of the Venetian commander Marcantonio Bragadino. After the capture of Nicosia, but especially after the fall of Famagusta, unprec- edented acts of atrocities followed, property was looted and most of the important churches 9. See Spyridakis, A Brief History of Cyprus, ante , pp. 43-46; Hill, A History of Cyprus, ante , pp. 247-48. 10. The mother of Constantine the Great visited Cyprus and established Churches including the monastery of Stavrovouni, where according to the tradition she left pieces of the cross upon which Christ was crucified: see Hill, A History of Cyprus, supra , p. 246 note 3. for the various versions. Constantine, though was much more of a Roman Emperor than a Christian, and even the latter has been seriously doubted on various grounds. 11. For the Arab raids see further, Spyridakis , A Brief History of Cyprus, supra , pp. 90-102; Hill, A History of Cyprus, op. cit ., pp. 291-296. 12. Isaac Comnenos was expelled from office by the King of England Richard Coeur de Lion on his way to the Holy Land as one of the leaders of the Third Crusade. The arrival of Richard and the events which followed are vividly described by St. Neophytos, one of the eminent ecclesiastical writers of the time. 13. For the legal implications of this assertion see below Chapter 5. 14. See Hill, A History of Cyprus, ante , pp. 1059-1061. 15. For a genealogical table of the house of Lusignans see Cobham , Excerpta Cypria , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1908, pp. 168-169; Hill , A History of Cyprus , vol. III (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1948), pp. 1156-1157. 16. On this, see Hill, A History of Cyprus, ibid ., pp. 765-877.