Easter makes the Orthodox faith stand out. The suffering of the world and the open wounds of Romanism in Cyprus make our Easter stand out even more with the suffering Virgins and the Myrrh-bearing Women of the Epitaph among us. Suffering and good souls in a mystery of faith that scholastics often do not understand, pouring out their vinegar.
Thus, as Christ, insulted and beaten, carries His Cross towards Golgotha, His Passions become one with the passions of our people. There, on the uphill road of the Martyrdom, a woman came out of the courtyard of her house and cooled His bloodied face, despising the scourges of the Romans and the terrors of the mob. As Christ walks along the Road of the Martyrdom, the suffering Virgins in the ruined chapels in the occupied territories and the Myrrh-bearing Women of Cyprus in their courtyards, wait to cool His face. And those who have abandoned worldly things, meet the Bridegroom Christ as He passes through plundered cemeteries, broken crosses, ruined churches and courtyards of consecrated houses in the occupied territories... And He continues through ravines and cliffs in His encounter with the Myrrh-bearing Women of Cyprus who are still searching for loved ones and others who hold bones and kiss them sweetly, exclaiming "Blessed is he who comes...".
There are many suffering Virgins in the ruined chapels in the occupied areas as well as the Myrrh-bearing ones around us… She is Theognossia who lived in a village at the foot of Pentadaktylos wearing a black headscarf day and night. She was married to the kind-hearted Kostis, who was kidnapped by Turkish Cypriot extremists and murdered before 1974, while since 1974, her son and son-in-law have been missing. She is Iphigenia of Tillyria with the long white braids, who received communion every August 15th at Panagia Chrysopaterittissa. She is Charita of Kyrenia, Chrystalla of Dicomo, Sophia of Vasileia, Helen of Karpasia, Callisthenes of Kythrea. There is also Eleni, who recently welcomed her 18-year-old missing fiancé after 52 years, and so many others who experience the Passion of Christ in their own mystical way.
There are also those who patiently await Christ in the refugee settlements, like Myrofora who in 1974, at the age of 37, was raising her family until that dark summer when the Turks entered the village, kidnapped her husband, who has been missing ever since, and wounded her little son Christakis, five years old, in the leg with a bullet. Myrofora has since taken to the streets searching for them until today, now 89 years old, recounting what happened, reverently placing her cross at the end, emphasizing that she hopes only in God.
This is the painful Cyprus with the refugees, the missing and the murdered, the daily concern for survival, the alienation, the amnesia. And our place will be saved because they deserve it, in the face of the ugliness, archomania and nonsense around us.
In the joy and sorrow of Orthodoxy, full of meaning in unanswered questions, "Blessed is he who comes..." and blessed is the Easter of our people.
Happy Easter.
Costas Mavridis, MEP DIKO (S&D)
Note: The first version was published 2 years ago.
