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ABSTRACT
This paper explores the politics of religious patrimony by comparing two cases where the heritagization of religious sites results in feelings of loss and estrangement rather than return and restoration. We show how shrines can function simultaneously as public and civic places of religious assembly but also as material and sensorial expressions of ambivalent forms of belonging and un-belonging – to the past, to a territory, to a religious denomination, to a domestic environment associated with childhood or previous generations. One case is of Greek Cypriots as they travel to a renovated monastery located in territory lost to them in 1974 after the island’s division. Encounters with the monastery are inflected by a broader, uncanny feeling of reentering a landscape that is familiar yet also estranged, studded by former childhood homes and villages now inhabited by others. The other case follows the experiences of Roman Catholics as they engage with the Christian pilgrimage site of Walsingham in the English county of Norfolk. The site now embodies a fractured heritage and pilgrimage space that recalls spiritual, material and cultural loss extending beyond biographical memory into the time of the Protestant Reformation. In both cases, ambiguities of ‘possession’ are provoked by forms of heritage restoration that embody but also obliterate memory in ways deemed to be deeply problematic by some populations. We argue that possession in these terms has economic and legal associations, referring to ownership of places and things, but it also points to situations where people are filled with an abiding and at times obsessive sense of the continuing urgency of the unsettled past.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Evgenia has carried out fieldwork on pilgrimages to Apostolos Andreas between 2018 and 2020 in the framework of a Marie-Sklodowska Curie Actions- Individual Fellowship, which she held with the University of Toronto (Canada) and the University of Cyprus. Her research focuses on Greek Cypriots. Evgenia's project has been approved by the Office of Research Ethics (ORE) at the University of Toronto (Protocol ID 35124). All interlocutors have provided appropriate informed consent. Simon has been carrying out fieldwork at Walsingham at various points since the 1990s.
All interlocutors have provided appropriate informed consent. His fieldwork has been approved by the Office of Research Ethics (ORE) at the University of Toronto (Protocol ID 43331).
2 Politis 28.11.2004 cited Kokkinoftas Citation2009, p. 183.
3 ‘Enclaved’ (‘Εγκλωβισμένοι’/‘englovismenoi’) refers to the Greek Cypriots ‘who did not leave their houses to move to the southern part of the island’ but remained and are still living in the occupied areas (Roudometof and Christou 2016, p. 168).
4 The Monastery is still visited by Turkish Cypriots (Hatay Citation2015a, pp. 83–84).
5 cf. Constantinou and Hatay (Citation2010, p. 1613) on the emphasis of Greek Cypriots on their heritage in the occupied areas ‘as a call to remember and struggle for return’.
6 Concerns over the Monastery’s state were already raised at the beginning of the 1990s (see PIO Press Release, No. 2, 11/04/93) and were intensified at their end (see Plenary Minutes of the House of Representatives of Cyprus 28.01.99).
7 Statement of the Government Representative Mr. Stefanos Stefanou regarding the signing of the agreement for the restoration of the Monastery of the Apostle Andreas, 31/01/13. http://www.piopressreleases.com.cy/easyconsole.cfm/page/easyconsole.cfm/page/printRelease/s_id/368108/isImported/1.
8 https://www.cy.undp.org/content/cyprus/en/home/library/partnershipforthefuture/the-technical-committee-on-cultural-heritage--2015-.html; http://tcchcyprus.com
9 https://unficyp.unmissions.org/about-good-offices; Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations operation in Cyprus, S/2008/353, 2 June 2008. https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/628257?ln=en#record-files-collapse-header.
10 The Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage in Cyprus 2015, p. 3.
11 The restoration of the Monastery of Apostolos Andreas is funded by the Church of Cyprus and the EVKAF Administration, the ‘Muslim Pious Foundations’ (Harmanşah 2016, 481). A small, symbolic contribution was also made by the USAID [UNDP-PFF 222/13 (17.09.13) PRESS RELEASE, UNDP CY TCCH Publication (October 2018): 2008–2018: 10 years working together for our common heritage, p. 15].
12 UNDP CY TCCH Publication (October 2018): 2008–2018: 10 years working together for our common heritage, p. 46; https://www.cy.undp.org/content/cyprus/en/home/projects/restoration-of-the-monastery-of-apostolos-andreas.html
13 ‘[H]eritage diplomacy can broadly be defined as a set of processes whereby cultural and natural pasts shared between and across nations become subject to exchanges, collaborations and forms of cooperative governance.’ (Yesilada Citation2015, p. 1007). Here we use it not for nations but for communities.
14 Speech by Tiziana Zennaro, UNDP Cyprus Senior Programme Manager, Restoration of the Monastery of Apostolos Andreas Phase 1 – Completion Ceremony, 7 November 2016.
15 ‘Refugee’ is used in the discourse of Greek Cypriots in a uniform manner even though ‘according to the 1951 Geneva Convention and the 1967 Protocol, those not forced to leave their country are internally displaced people and not refugees’ (Roudometof and Christou 2016, p. 169).
16 The Greek word topos (τόπος) ‘means place, an actual physical location that one can belong to’ (Stylianou-Lambert et al. Citation2021, p. 7). It is used ‘interchangeably to mean “place” and “home”’ (Hadjiyanni Citation2001, p. 95).
17 Greek Orthodox and Maronite populations living in the occupied part can hold liturgies or masses with designated priests/clergy in designated functional churches. Permission needs however to be sought from the authorities if religious services are to be held at churches or monasteries other than the designated ones or/and by priests other than the ones ‘officially predesignated to conduct services’. For services in which Cypriots who do not reside in the occupied areas but travel from the south participate, specific permission is required (2016 International Religious Freedom Report). Requests for religious services are facilitated by the United Nations (UN Security Council Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations operation in Cyprus, 9 January 2017, S/2017/20).
18 Church of Cyprus: https://churchofcyprus.org.cy/9184. Most Greek-Orthodox churches and chapels in the occupied areas were turned into mosques ‘left in ruins, or used for other purposes’ (Constantinou et al. Citation2012, p. 179–180). Some, such as St. Barnabas in Famagusta have been turned into museums (Constantinou and Hatay Citation2010, p. 1615). When Evgenia’s Greek Cypriot interlocutors go to St Barnabas as part of their journeys to the Monastery of Apostolos Andreas, they usually do not pay to enter the museum but visit what is said to be the saint’s tomb. For an interesting analysis on how a small group of Greek Cypriot Christian Orthodox women insist in ‘using the space as a church instead of a museum’ (Stylianou-Lambert et al. Citation2014, p. 7) and on how this attitude is informed by ‘their perceptions about religion and politics’ (13) see Stylianou-Lambert et al. (Citation2014).
19 The other three were St Barnabas (Famagusta), St Mamas (Morphou) and St George Exorinos (Famagusta). Apostolos Andreas, St Barnaba and St Mamas would be ‘open for religious services throughout the year’ whereas St George Exorinos ‘would be the site of monthly religious services’ (2016 International Religious Freedom Report); see also (Report of the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights on her mission to Cyprus, A/HRC/34/56/Add.1, 24 February 2017, p. 17). Even so, in April 2017 for example, a church service on Good Friday was not permitted to take place at the St. George Exorinos Church in Famagusta (United States Department of State, International Religious Freedom Report for 2017, p. 12. See also United States Department of State, International Religious Freedom Report for 2016, p. 13). Permission ‘for Greek Cypriots to conduct a religious ceremony on September 1–3 at St. Mamas Church to celebrate the saint’s name day’ was also not given in 2017 (United States Department of State, International Religious Freedom Report for 2017, p. 14).
20 Karpasia Diocese temporarily has its sit in the Holy Archdiocese of Cyprus owing to the ongoing Turkish occupation of Karpasia (http://churchofcyprus.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/karpasias.pdf). The current Oikonomos (οικονόμος) of the Monastery was ordained as such ‘by Archbishop Chrysostomos I, in February 1999’ (Kokkinoftas Citation2009, p. 184).
21 Proskynima is the Greek word for pilgrimage. It needs to be noted however that the Greek word ‘refers more broadly to the set of devotions performed upon entering a church’ (Dubisch Citation1995, p. 78; Håland Citation2009, p. 98) and does not necessarily connote a journey as ‘pilgrimage’ does (Rahkala Citation2010, p. 80). Greek Cypriot interlocutors’ narrations of pre-war pilgrimages to Apostolos Andreas illustrate their association with pleasant memories of joyful family trips in which conventionally religious practices of proskynisis were mixed with leisure, holiday and socialization activities. This is not uncommon in the Greek Orthodox context (cf. Stylianou et al. Citation1994, p. 218, Dubisch Citation1995, pp. 80–81) where ‘excursion’ is often used for monastery visits (Rahkala Citation2010, p. 81).
22 UN Human Rights Council, Question of human rights in Cyprus, Report of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, 6 February 2019, A/HRC/40/22, available at: https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/G19/026/77/PDF/G1902677.pdf?OpenElement [accessed 24 January 2023].
23 See for example the UN Security Council, Strategic Review of the UN Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus, Report of the Secretary General, 28 November 2017, S/2017/1008, paragraph 26 and the UN Security Council, Report of the Secretary General on the UN Operation in Cyprus, 9 January 2017, and S/2017/20 paragraph 44.
24 The Oxford Movement developed within the Church of England throughout the nineteenth century and was dedicated to restoring liturgy from the pre-Reformation. It partly defined itself against the burgeoning evangelical movements of the time and was gradually translated into what became known as Anglo-Catholicism within the national Church.
25 https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2003/08_august/10/r4_spiritual_place.shtml
26 https://www.cathedral.org.uk/about/news/detail/2019/09/09/walsingham-way-funding-boost. In describing this project to the local press even the Vice-Dean of Norwich Cathedral framed the journey in an economistic language of heritage. As he put it: ‘Pilgrimage is a form of sustainable tourism which can bring important benefits to pilgrims and local communities alike.’
28 Navaro-Yashin (Citation2012), for example, develops ‘the notion of the unhomely home as a motif to describe Cypriot houses that have been appropriated’ (ibid., p. 199) as part of the taking over of such spaces by Turkish Cypriots from Greek Cypriots. She argues that in the case of such houses the uncanny ‘is part of the everyday experience of homeliness’ and is therefore not experienced as strange but as normal (ibid., p. 184).
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