THE ARMENIANS OF CYPRUS 7 Dear reader, This short publication offers you an opportunity to get a glimpse of the long history and the rich culture of the Armenians, one of the oldest peoples in the world, and at the same time provide you with details about the diachronic presence of the Armenians in Cyprus. Armenia or Hayastan, as it is known by the Armenians, is considered by many scientists and historians as the cradle of civilisation, the place where, according to the Bible, the repopulation of the Earth began after the Great Deluge. Armenia also happens to be the first country in the world to have adopted Christianity as its state religion in 301 AD. With the “discovery” of the Armenian alphabet in 405 AD by the classical scholar Saint Mesrob Mashdots, the Bible was translated into Armenian, enabling Armenians to produce great works of literature in their own language. Having experienced periods of exceptional greatness and having endured tragedies, such as the first Genocide of the 20th century between 1915 and 1923, the Armenian nation is today dispersed in small and big communities around the world. About 3,5 million Armenians live in the Republic of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, while around 5,5 million live in the Armenian Diaspora, part of which is our community living on our beloved island of Cyprus. Today’s relatively small Armenian-Cypriot community consists essentially of the descendants of Genocide survivors; however, the Armenian presence in Cyprus dates back to 578 AD, during the Byzantine Era, when villages like Armenokhori and Arminou were created, while Armenian was one of the official languages in Cyprus during the Latin period. Although most of their traces are now long gone, the renowned Sourp Magar Monastery in Pentadaktylos, the Gothic cathedral of Notre Dame de Tyre or Tortosa in Nicosia, as well as the beautiful church the Virgin Mary of Ganchvor in Famagusta, bear witness to the existence of Armenians in Cyprus during the Frankish, the Venetian and the Ottoman Eras. Nowadays, one can still find Armenian-Cypriots whose parents or grandparents had ancestors in Cyprus in the early or mid-Ottoman Era. For us, Armenian-Cypriots, Cyprus is our adopted homeland, the land where we were born and grew up in a multicultural environment of acceptance, tolerance and understanding. Taking this opportunity, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the governments of the Republic of Cyprus since 1960, as well as to all my fellow Cypriots, for actively supporting the well-being of the Armenian community, thus safeguarding the preservation of our rich culture, heritage, language and religious identity. A Message from the Representative of the Armenian Religious Group in the House of Representatives, Mr Vartkes Mahdessian