The Latin Community

The present Latin community of the island, as regards both its clerical and secular members, came into being during the early Ottoman period, with members of the Franciscan Order of the Roman Catholic Church playing a crucial role in the preservation and propagation of the Roman Catholic faith in Cyprus during the difficult years following the Ottoman conquest of 1571, and it began to increase notably in numbers during the late Ottoman and early British periods. It had a nationally heterogeneous composition, with its members originating from Venice, other areas of Italy, Malta, France and even Dalmatia. Most of the Latins on the island not belonging to the clergy were engaged in commercial pursuits, but nonetheless also developed notable initiatives in other fields such as agriculture and education, and thereby made a significant contribution to the life of the island.
This article will outline the creation and development of the contemporary Latin community in Cyprus from the beginning of the Ottoman period until today. Given that this community includes members of the clergy as well as lay persons, a description of Latin religious institutions and activities in Cyprus will be given first, and will be followed by the history of the Latins who were, or became, permanent residents of Cyprus from the Ottoman period onwards. The article will not concern itself except fleetingly with visiting travellers, merchants, sailors and others visiting the island or staying on a temporary basis. For purposes of definition it should also be pointed out that the term ‘Latins’ in this article refers exclusively to those inhabitants of Cyprus who were Roman Catholics by confession and European by origin. It does not include Maronites, who are Roman Catholics originating from Lebanon.

The Latin Clergy in Cyprus after 1571

The Sixteenth Century

The Ottoman capture of Cyprus in 1571 resulted in the formal dissolution of the Latin Church of the island, which had been founded in 1196 by a bull of Pope Celestine III and had been the island’s established church during the periods of Lusignan and Venetian rule (1191-1571). The Roman Catholic clergy continued nonetheless to maintain a presence in Cyprus, albeit an extremely low-key one. A Franciscan convent dedicated to St Lazarus was founded in Larnaca in 1593, and on buying back the church of St Lazarus in Larnaca from the Turks in 1589, the Orthodox Christians of Cyprus allowed the Roman Catholic clergy to celebrate the divine offices there on the feasts of St Lazarus and of St Mary Magdalene. This practice continued until 1784 when, following protests by the island’s Orthodox clergy to the Ottoman sultan, the Latins were forbidden to celebrate church services there. The fact, however, that Roman Catholic clergy used to hold church services there until 1784, even if only twice a year, constitutes proof of the existence of a Latin clerical and lay population in Larnaca. According to the testimony of the Italian theologian Girolamo Dandini, the Latin community of Cyprus by 1596 also had a small church in Nicosia. Its priest is described as ‘unlettered but honest’, while Italian merchants, who were in all probability Venetians permanently resident in Nicosia, provided for the sacred objects, sustenance and vestments of this priest. In the same year the English traveller F. Moryson visited Cyprus, staying for three nights with a companion at the Franciscan residence in Larnaca. Both of them on departing gave some money to the Franciscan friars there for their needs. Two years later, in 1598, the Dutch visitor Johann van Kootwych referred to a Franciscan cemetery in Larnaca adjoining the church of St Lazarus, at which European seafarers who had died in the town were buried according to the Roman rite. The Franciscans had purchased this cemetery from the Turks a few years previously.

Van Kootwych also gives a description of the Franciscan establishments in Larnaca that were constituent parts of the convent of St Lazarus, stating that the friars lived in several small rooms built with the funds offered by the faithful. A wall had been constructed around these establishments by way of protection from the robbers and thieves in the area, and located within this wall was an orchard and a vegetable garden in which the friars cultivated fruit and vegetables. The Franciscan friars also offered hospitality within these establishments to pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. These pilgrims, along with various merchants, travellers and seafarers arriving in Cyprus from Western Europe, from time to time donated sums of money to the Franciscans, an order of mendicant friars, to cover their needs. Indeed the Franciscans were entitled to go on board the ships from Western Europe at anchor in the harbour of Larnaca so as to ask for alms from the seamen and other travellers who, according to van Kootwych, gave generously. The Venetian ships frequenting Larnaca, for instance, gave them one gold ducat in the course of each visit.

The Seventeenth Century

The Franciscan establishment in Larnaca continued to exist into the seventeenth century, and was mentioned in the year 1625 by the Roman noble Della Valle in the course of his visit to Cyprus. Della Valle also visited the monastery of Ayia Napa. He observed that this establishment, although Orthodox, had an altar at the corner of its church which the visiting Latin clergy could use to administer the sacraments in accordance with their own traditions.

The seventeenth century witnessed the re-establishment of Latin secular clergy on the island. The establishment of a Roman Catholic bishopric in Cyprus was undertaken during the early seventeenth century, when the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (Propaganda Fidei), a missionary organisation, was founded in 1622 under Pope Gregory XV. In 1625 it resolved to send two Jesuit missionaries to Cyprus to propagate the Roman Catholic faith, but not to found a bishopric on the island. Despite these initial reservations, the Congregation, aided by the ardent wish of the Venetian merchants in Cyprus for the creation of a Latin bishopric there, eventually founded a Roman Catholic bishopric in Paphos in 1629 with jurisdiction over the Latin and Maronite churches on the island. The first incumbent of the see was the Carmelite friar Peter de Vespis, whose dislike of the Maronites, who had previously objected to the establishment of the Latin bishopric in Paphos, impelled him to campaign forcefully to compel the latter to conform to Latin usages.

A report on the ecclesiastical situation in Cyprus, compiled by the able Franciscan missionary Giovanni Battista da Todi in 1647, stated that a Franciscan church dedicated to the Holy Cross had been founded in Nicosia six to eight years previously, and attached to it was a hospice with four priests. The Franciscans also maintained a school in Nicosia, with 13 pupils. The report alludes to a church of St James in Nicosia maintained by the Capuchin friars and to a Franciscan hospice in Limassol, which needed vestments and sacred objects pertaining to the altar, and where the sacraments were administered secretly. In Larnaca the report mentioned eight Latins and an undetermined number of Greek Roman Catholics, and a Franciscan church dedicated to St Mary of the Graces.

Later in the seventeenth century, more Capuchin friars arrived and established houses in Paphos and Larnaca, but were apparently unable to remain owing to the decline of the communities of merchants that supported them. Roman Catholic missionary activity in Cyprus declined sharply following the death of Giovanni Battista da Todi in 1666. On the death of the Roman Catholic bishop Leonardo Paoli in 1684, no one was sent to replace him since the total Latin population of Cyprus now numbered only 250 persons.

The Eighteenth Century

In the early eighteenth century the Franciscan friars in Larnaca encountered other dangers in addition to the presence of thieves and robbers. According to van Kootwych, the incumbent Ottoman governor of Cyprus gaoled a Venetian merchant who had become Muslim and returned to Christianity on repenting, and who had also assisted a German Franciscan who had also become Muslim and had subsequently repented to escape from Cyprus. These two instances of renegades are by no means isolated. Two more Franciscan friars, the Spaniard Antonio de Valenzuela and the Portuguese Lazaro Nunez de Souza, came to Cyprus in 1701 and 1705 respectively with the intention of becoming Muslim, but de Souza subsequently repented and suffered death by decapitation for apostatising from Islam.

In 1738 the English visitor R. Pococke stated that the Franciscan friars maintained a large establishment in Larnaca and that the Roman Catholic monks of the Capuchin Order also maintained a convent there. The recorded presence of Capuchin friars in Larnaca, however, indicates that either they had returned to Cyprus or, unlike their brethren in Paphos, the Capuchins in Larnaca had not departed from the island at the end of the seventeenth century. There are, moreover, testimonies dating from the beginning of the eighteenth century regarding the Franciscan establishment in Nicosia. Five to six Franciscan friars were resident there according to the Dutch visitor and professor Johannes Heyman. The existence of these two Franciscan establishments in Cyprus, a major one in Larnaca and a smaller one in Nicosia, which Pococke also mentioned, is indeed indicative of the continued presence of the Roman Catholic clergy in Cyprus at the start of the eighteenth century. Drummond, the British consul in Cyprus, stated in 1745 that both the Franciscans and the Capuchins maintained establishments in Larnaca. The Spanish Franciscan Juan Lopez, who sojourned for a certain length of time there, provided additional information on the Franciscan establishment in Nicosia. He described it as a cheerful and welcoming edifice with a beautiful garden, located near the Paphos Gate. Kinneir, a Scottish official of the East India Company, likewise refers to the Franciscan establishments in both Nicosia and Larnaca, describing the latter as being extremely large and impressive and as the home of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, which functioned as a seminary for Roman Catholic priests in Cyprus. He advised travellers to stay at this establishment, clearly on account of its having the most suitable facilities for them.

The Nineteenth Century

For the beginning of the nineteenth century there exists the testimony of the British consul Turner. He visited the Franciscan establishment in Larnaca, describing their church as small but tasteful and imparting the information that the French and Austrian consuls attended its services. When the Greek War of Independence broke out in 1821 its consequences in Cyprus extended to the Latins on the island as well as the Greeks. According to the Roman newspaper Notizie del Giorno, Ottoman soldiers stationed in Nicosia fired upon the Franciscan church in the town during the course of the service, spreading terror among the congregation to a point where a considerable number of ladies fainted. This notwithstanding, the Franciscans continued to maintain a presence in Nicosia. The Franciscan friar Padre Antonio, who was of Venetian origin, conducted the Scotsman Malcolm Laing Meason around Nicosia in the course of his visit to the capital in 1853. Laing mentions the Franciscan convent in Nicosia, as well as the fact that their major establishment in Larnaca housed the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith and so was responsible for the training of the Maronite clergy of Cyprus as well as the Latin clergy. Although, as mentioned above, Laing was conducted around Nicosia by a Franciscan of Venetian origin during the course of his visit there, according to the information given by an anonymous author writing in 1878, shortly after the cession of Cyprus by the Ottoman empire to Britain, the monks resident at that time at the Franciscan house in Nicosia originated from Spain.

The educational and humanitarian activity of the Roman Catholic clergy in Cyprus during the course of the nineteenth century is worthy of mention. In 1833 American missionaries in Cyprus founded schools that Greeks also attended, but these were considered as centres of proselytising and in 1837 the missionaries were forbidden to found more such schools following the intervention of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, with the missionaries themselves eventually leaving Cyprus in 1841. The schools they had founded, however, continued to be maintained and to follow the same system of education introduced by the missionaries, for they had proved the value of a Western education to the Greeks. Shortly after the missionaries’ departure, however, the sisters of the Roman Catholic Order of St Joseph of the Apparition founded a hospital, a pharmacy and a new Roman Catholic school for girls in 1844. By the following year this school had 80 pupils, while the building housing the school had the capacity for no less than 500. This was because its founders entertained the hope that it would attract students not only from Cyprus but also from the whole East Mediterranean area. With the passage of time these hopes proved unfounded, and in 1858 the school had only 20 female students, both Latin and Orthodox. In 1890 a Roman Catholic priest founded schools in various small villages in the district of Limassol that were unable to finance their own schools due to poverty, and he employed a teacher for educating the pupils there. The fact that these schools functioned allegedly as proselytising centres provoked strong opposition among the Greeks of Limassol, who responded by raising funds themselves for the support of these schools, and the teacher whom the priest had persuaded to work there resigned.

The Latin population in Cyprus after 1571

The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

Turning to the secular Latin element in Cyprus following its capture in 1571 by the Ottomans, one ascertains that the Latins still remaining on the island immediately after the conquest were for the most part Venetians. The ‘consul of the Franks’ referred to by the French traveller Beauvau in 1604 must have been of Venetian origin, while the same person offers the information that there were also Dutch merchants in Larnaca in the same period. The Roman nobleman Della Valle mentioned Venetian merchants resident in Larnaca, pointing out that the Venetians maintained a consulate in this town from way back. He further observed that the Venetians consuls in Cyprus were independent and not accountable to their counterparts at Aleppo in Syria. He observed, however, that the latter enjoyed diplomatic precedence on account of their noble origin, for their counterparts in Larnaca were of burgess origin. By the end of the seventeenth century, however, the French appear to have supplanted the Venetians as the main component of the Latin population in Cyprus. A French explorer by the name of N.D. Hurtrel visited Cyprus in 1670 and mentioned a French consul resident in Larnaca for providing services to ships calling there from Marseilles and other French ports. The Dutch traveller Van Bruyn, who visited Cyprus in the year 1670, stated that virtually all the European merchants resident in Larnaca were French, with very few exceptions. It should be noted here that it was not by any means fortuitous that the majority of the Latins in Cyprus resided in Larnaca, for the consulates established at the port of Larnaca provided both employment and protection for the Latin population, secular as much as clerical, resident in Cyprus.

The Eighteenth Century

In other cities of Cyprus lacking the presence of European consulates it was far more difficult for Latins to take up residence. The Dutch professor Johannes Heyman visited Cyprus at the beginning of the eighteenth century, observing that both Latins and Greeks were forbidden to enter the port city of Famagusta on horseback, something that discouraged Latins from settling there and ensured that they continued to be centred in Larnaca. According to Heyman, both the British and the Dutch had their own consulates in Larnaca from the beginning of the eighteenth century. The maritime republic of Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik), situated on the Dalmatian coast, also maintained a diplomatic presence in Cyprus during this period, and in 1738 the English traveller R. Pococke mentioned the consulate of Ragusa in Larnaca. One notes that at the beginning of the eighteenth century the consul of Ragusa in Larnaca was subject to his counterpart in Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The enterprising Ivan Garmoliezzi, who was consul in Larnaca from 1713 onwards and was eventually appointed to this position for life, holding it until his death in 1759, had by then become a fabulously wealthy merchant and ship owner. The Ragusan consulate in Cyprus continued to play an active part in the island’s commerce until 1808, when the French emperor Napoleon abolished the Republic of Ragusa. At the close of the eighteenth century a Ragusan sea captain named Antonio Roretti bought a large expanse of land to the west of Kerynia and created the well known estate of Founji.

The Venetians, who were the first to found a consulate in Ottoman Cyprus, continued to maintain a presence on the island down to the end of the eighteenth century, when Napoleon conquered Italy and abolished the Venetian Republic. The Swedish doctor Fr. Hasselquist who visited Cyprus in 1751 stayed in Larnaca at the house of the Venetian consul, who at that time also represented Sweden. An anonymous English officer of the East India Company who visited Cyprus in 1779 mentioned a Venetian merchant staying in Larnaca as well as the Venetian consul, informing us that the house of the Venetian consul was not within the town of Larnaca, but ten miles distant from it. M. de Vezin, the British consul in Cyprus in 1792, who was of French origin, likewise referred to the Venetian consulate in Larnaca and to the export of various Cypriot products to France, Venice and Tuscany.

The Nineteenth Century

With the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 and Napoleon’s rise to power, Britain and France, who were now at war in both Europe and the eastern Mediterranean, became increasingly interested in Egypt, Palestine and Cyprus. This opened up new opportunities for Latins resident in Cyprus. By 1801, according to the information provided by the Reverend E.D. Clarke, an English vicar, the British consul in Larnaca was a certain Sgr. Peristiani, who was a Venetian. Following the abolition of the Republic of Venice by Napoleon, the subjects of Venice who happened to be in Cyprus began offering their services elsewhere, and the British who were at war with Napoleon were especially interested in exploiting the longstanding experience and connections of the Venetians resident in Cyprus.

Italians from other parts of Italy also began to settle in Cyprus from the close of the eighteenth century and throughout the course of the nineteenth century. The English doctor J. Sibthorpe who visited Cyprus in 1787 mentions the house of an Italian resident in Larnaca. During his stay in Cyprus in 1806, the Spanish explorer known under the pseudonym Ali Bey availed himself of the services of an Italian interpreter, a certain Dr Brunoni, during his visit to the Orthodox archbishop of Cyprus, observing that this Italian lived after the manner of the Greeks. Notwithstanding the dissolution of the Venetian Republic, as pointed out above, remnants of their community continued to live in Larnaca. When the British officer Captain H. Light visited Larnaca in 1814 he noticed that the descendants of the Venetians there continued to speak the Venetian dialect ‘though purer Italian is spoken by many of the Franks’, according to his testimony. Captain H. Light also provides us with the first reference to the existence in Larnaca of the Spanish and Austrian consulates. The British diplomat W. Turner likewise referred to the consuls of those two states in 1815, reserving particular praise for the Spanish consul on account of his steadfast refusal to declare himself for Napoleon. As has been stated previously, Spanish Franciscan friars began arriving in Cyprus during the course of the nineteenth century, and their presence, in conjunction with the export of Cypriot wheat to the Iberian Peninsula at the beginning of the nineteenth century, perhaps explains the establishment of a Spanish consulate in Cyprus in this period. One notes here that according to the account of Pouqueville, the French consul in Janina who sympathised with the Greeks, a Cypriot who had been the honorary consul of Spain in Larnaca for 36 years was put to death by the Turks following the outbreak in 1821 of the Greek War of Independence, something which shows that consular status did not always constitute a guarantee of personal safety.

Following the decisive defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 and the annexation of Malta to the British crown, Maltese and Italians began to settle in Cyprus to an increasing extent. W. Turner imparts information on an Italian soldier who had fought for Napoleon and who came to Cyprus after his demise, married a Cypriot woman and settled in Nicosia, where he found work as a cabinet maker. Turner also mentions the arrival at the Larnaca harbour of various vessels from Malta. Some years later, in 1837, the Englishwoman Jane Franklin visited Cyprus and in her description of a hostel in Larnaca named Hotel de la Giraffe pointed out that its owner was a Piedmontese who was, however, French as opposed to Italian speaking. Malcolm Laing Meason, the Scotsman who, as mentioned previously, visited Cyprus in 1853, mentions the descendants of Italians and Maltese who had settled in Larnaca, remarking that the Italians and the Maltese had always had a liking for Cyprus. He also observed that Italian was the dominant language at the harbour of Larnaca, and that around 1,000 Greek Uniates (Greek-rite Roman Catholics) along with another 3,000 descendants of Italian and Maltese immigrants were resident in Cyprus. Provided that these figures are reliable, they bespeak an impressive rise in the number of Latins, especially when one takes into account the testimony of the British consul in 1745, a certain Drummond, that there were only around 1,000 Europeans in Larnaca at that time, while sixty years later, in 1806, the Scotsman Kinneir mentioned only 40 families of Latins in the town. According to the account of the German Ludwig Ross, whose work was published in 1853, the Italians arriving in Cyprus were not always disinterested in their motives. A number of them arrived in search of hidden treasure, while a Corsican touring various places in the districts of Limassol and Paphos was in the habit of smashing various stone inscriptions in the hope of finding gold underneath them.

Of all the Italians settling in Cyprus during this period, the landowner Riccardo Matthei was undoubtedly the most distinguished. In the years 1867-68 he discovered a novel method for the extermination of the locust pest that periodically devastated Cyprus, utterly destroying the year’s crop. Following his arrival in Cyprus in 1878, Sir Garnet Wolseley, the island’s first British governor, attempted without success to rent a house in Larnaca belonging to Riccardo Matthei. Despite this, the British continued to have a high opinion of Matthei, and in 1879 he was appointed as one of the four members of the Legislative Council, along with one Greek and two Turks. Shortly before his death in 1882, he was declared an officer of the Order of St Michael and St George. According to the testimony of Malcolm Laing Meason, a fair number of Frenchmen and Italians settling in Cyprus took Cypriot wives and busied themselves with commerce or various other professions. He describes them as well-off and with money in the bank, but not wealthy, adding that they were extremely careful with their money. He makes particular mention of a Frenchman and his compatriots, who having served at the French consulate decided to remain in Cyprus on account of the lower cost of living on the island. Most of them avoided the pursuit of agriculture and occupied themselves with money lending, usually advancing money to those who bred silkworms for the French market, at a yearly rate of interest of 12.5%.

The Present-day Latin Community in Cyprus

Following the establishment of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960, the Latin community of the island, along with the Armenian and Maronite communities, was recognised formally as a religious group, with the right to have a representative in the newly founded House of Representatives, as the Cypriot parliament is called. It should be stressed that these representatives do not represent their respective communities politically, but simply act as a link between the government of the day and their community, promoting its claims and providing for its needs, as well as working with the government in the preservation of the communities’ customs, traditions and religion. By virtue of this provision, the Latins and the other religious groups are entitled to vote twice, once to elect their own communal representatives and a second time to elect members of the House of Representatives who are affiliated to the island’s various political parties. The Latins of Cyprus also have a religious leader, the General Vicar of the Latins and papal nuncio. He is not a citizen of Cyprus, but a member of the Franciscan Order resident in Nicosia, and under the jurisdiction of the Latin (i.e. Roman Catholic) Patriarch of Jerusalem. One also notes that the Latins as well as the other religious groups have their own programme on the state radio.

It is a constant objective of the Latin community’s representatives to increase the number of registered Latins in Cyprus, so as to strengthen the community and thereby ensure that the representatives’ voice can carry greater weight. In 1991 there were around 290 officially registered Latins on the island who were citizens of Cyprus, but since then the representatives of the Latin community have come into contact with numerous other Latins and the number of officially registered Latins has increased to 700. Furthermore, following the completion of a survey accomplished with the assistance of the island’s Roman Catholic clergy it appears that there are 1,700 Roman Catholic citizens of Cyprus and a total Roman Catholic population of 7,000 permanently resident on the island, inclusive of aliens. If the overseas workers in Cyprus who happen to be Roman Catholic, originating mainly from the Philippines, are added to the above number, a figure of 13,000 Roman Catholics resident in Cyprus is attained.

The Latin community of Cyprus has benefited from state assistance for its various schools and churches over the past ten years, including free health care for Roman Catholic clergy irrespective of nationality, the payment of the salaries of five Roman Catholic priests resident in Nicosia, Larnaca, Limassol and Paphos, an annual grant of £22,000 per annum towards the needs of the Roman Catholic church in Cyprus, fully subsidized education for the children of Latins attending Latin primary and secondary schools and a partial subsidy for the children of Latins attending private secondary schools. Churches serving the Latin community of Cyprus are that of the Holy Cross near the Paphos Gate in Nicosia, founded in 1901 with a grant from Queen Maria-Christina, wife of King Alfonso XII of Spain, that of St Catherine’s in Limassol founded by the Franciscans in 1872 and that of St Mary of the Graces, re-founded in Larnaca by the Franciscans in 1848. One should also mention an earlier Latin church founded at Larnaca in 1702, the foundation stone of which had been laid by the French consul and which had served as his private chapel and as a hospice for pilgrims bound for the Holy Land. An additional church has recently been acquired in Paphos. There are also Latin cemeteries in Nicosia, Larnaca and Paphos, as well as Latin chapels at the college of Terra Santa in Nicosia and the monastery of St Joseph in Larnaca, founded in 1841 by the sisters of this order, who have been mentioned previously. As regards schools, those serving the Latins of Cyprus but which also accept pupils of other faiths are Terra Santa College in Nicosia, founded and maintained by the Franciscan friars, and the School of St Mary in Limassol, originally founded as a girls’ college by the Franciscan Sisters of the Sacred Heart. Both the above schools provide pre-primary, primary and secondary education, and the School of St Mary has recently become co-educational. To the above establishments can be added a kindergarten at Kalo Khorio in the district of Paphos. The Latins of Cyprus also maintain two charitable organisations, that of St Anthony in Nicosia and of St Catherine in Limassol, which organise an annual bazaar every Christmas, with the proceeds going towards the needs of the poor.

By way of conclusion, it is possible to state that the Latins of Cyprus form a compact but steadily increasing community differing markedly from the Armenians and the Maronites, the other two religious groups officially recognised by the constitution of Cyprus, insofar as they are not nationally homogeneous. This national heterogeneity, as seen above, existed from the outset, with Venetians, French, Italians and Maltese all contributing to the formation of Cyprus’ modern Latin community. In recent decades intermarriage between native Cypriots and Roman Catholics from Eastern Europe such as Poles and Czechs or even with Filipinos from the Far East has added to this national heterogeneity, and the Latins of Cyprus look set to become not only more numerous on the island, but also more diverse ethnically.