Latins of Cyprus_EN

THE LATINS OF CYPRUS 9 During the Frankish and the Venetian Eras, thousands of Roman Catholics lived in Cyprus, representing 15- 20% of the total population, but exercising a strong influence, as they were the ruling class of nobles and aristocrats. The secular Latin population came from Aragon, Catalonia, Florence, Venice, Genoa, Marseilles, Naples, Pisa, Provence, Syro-Palestine and Tuscany. There were also a few affluent Armenian Catholics from the neighbouring Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia. After the Fall of Acre in 1291, Cyprus became the easternmost bulwark of Christianity, the most important commercial centre in the Levant and probably the richest kingdom of all Europe. Ottoman Era: Following the conquest of Cyprus by the Ottomans between 1570-1571, thousands of Latin nobles and clerics were slaughtered or exiled. Others migrated to Rhodes, Malta, Lebanon and elsewhere, while several Latin churches were turned into mosques. At the same time, the Latin Church was essentially dissolved while the new rulers restored the autocephalous Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus as the only representative Christian Church on the island. The few Latins who survived the massacres and chose to remain in Cyprus were given two options: either to become Greek Orthodox or to embrace Islam. However, being devout Catholics, many of them chose a third path: they became Linobambaki (Crypto-Christians), hiding their worship and holding onto the hope that the Ottomans would leave Cyprus. Legends also speak of Lusignans and Venetians who went into hiding on the Troodos and Pentadaktylos mountains and the Carpass peninsula, some of whom returned to Catholicism during the British Era. l View of the Bellapais Abbey. l The last Queen of Cyprus, Caterina Cornaro, who reigned between 1474 and 1489.