The September 1955 pogrom and Archbishop Makarios III’s response

Local britainGreecehistoryTop Newsturkey The September 1955 pogrom and Archbishop Makarios III’s response 1 (1) Relevant News The September 1955 pogrom and Archbishop Makarios III’s response 7 September 2026 Illegal feeding stations put Cyprus mouflon and hares at risk 7 September 2026 Motorcyclist, 24, in extremely critical condition after serious crash 7 September 2026 newsroom 7 September 2026 FacebookXWhatsAppEmailPrintViber By Dr Sotiroula Vasileiou, Historian, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki On the night of September 6 to 7, 1955, the Tripartite Conference in London was heading towards collapse. That same night, Greeks in Constantinople and Smyrna found themselves at the mercy of what Vasileiou describes as “mobs of enraged Turks.” The trigger for the anti-Greek pogrom, often likened to a Greek Kristallnacht, was a provocateur bombing of an improvised device at the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki on September 6. In Constantinople alone, during what Vasileiou calls an organised assault by mobs, more than seventy churches were vandalised, 4,000 to 4,500 Greek businesses and shops were destroyed, 8,000 members of the Greek community lost their jobs, 3,500 households were looted (1,000 of them completely destroyed), hundreds of Greek men and women were assaulted, and around 20 people were killed, with estimates ranging from 15 to 37. Greek newspapers reported the violence in stark terms. Kathimerini‘s front page on September 7 declared: “The fanaticised Turkish mob set fire to the Greek consulate in Smyrna and Greek shops in Constantinople,” alongside a second headline reading: “The Anglo-Turkish conspiracy against Greece. Britain, using the Turkish trap as well, is granting Cyprus a supposed self-government.” The following day, Kathimerini reported: “Unprecedented terrorist attacks against the Greeks in Constantinople and Smyrna. The unleashed Turkish mob looted shops and set fire to churches.” Two days later, the Athens newspaper Empros compared the events to Turkish atrocities of 1821 under the headline: “The English are celebrating the vandalism of the enraged Turkish mob against the Greeks.” On September 13, Eleftheria published two images captioned: “A characteristic diptych of Anglo-Turkish cooperation in the Cyprus question. While Turkish bashi-bazouks destroyed everything Greek they found in their path, British commandos were landing in Cyprus to suppress the sacred struggle of the Cypriot people for their freedom.” As was clear from the earliest hours, and as archival and academic research has since confirmed, the September 1955 events fit into a wider effort to present the Cyprus question as a dispute between Greeks and Turks, with a resolution favourable to Britain. The day before the violence, on September 5, thousands of Turks had demonstrated in London, arguing that Cyprus was Turkish and that any move towards union with Greece or self-determination would lead to war and bloodshed. According to the newspaper Ethnos on September 6, 1955, they argued Cyprus should either remain under British rule or be handed to Turkey. A farsighted leader; a call to avoid anti-Turkish reprisals Archbishop Makarios III, the leader of the Greek Cypriots, spoke publicly about the events in both Greece and Cyprus with restraint, explicitly urging that anti-Turkish reprisals be avoided. At the same time, he condemned those who, benefiting from stoking hatred between the Greeks of Cyprus and what he called “the Turkish element of Cyprus,” bore moral responsibility for the violence. According to Ethnarchy Secretary Nikos Kranidiotis, Greek Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Stefanos Stefanopoulos had already asked Makarios on September 7 to remain calm and use his full authority to prevent destructive intercommunal unrest in Cyprus. On September 8, the Archbishop presided over the Divine Liturgy at the Kykkos Monastery during its feast celebrations, attended by more than 20,000 pilgrims, according to contemporary accounts, with the Greek flag flying from the bell tower. After discussing the day’s Gospel reading, Makarios turned to the national question, linking the demand for self-determination and freedom to Christian morality and justice. Referring to the Tripartite Conference, he said: “Unfortunately, a spirit of liberalism did not prevail among our allies, and they sought to make this conference a cenotaph of Cypriot freedom. But freedom does not die. What can the foreign ruler set against our right? Nothing rational, moral or just, only the law of force and hypocrisy.” According to Eleftheria‘s Nicosia and Athens editions of September 9, 1955, speaking to journalists, the Ethnarch addressed the events in Constantinople and Smyrna, saying: “We, the Greeks of Cyprus, will always maintain, as we have until now, friendly feelings towards the Turks of the island, even if others stoke hatred between us and them. Let the Turks of Cyprus be certain that we will always respect their life, their property and all their rights as a minority. We certainly grieve over the unprecedented events in Constantinople and Smyrna against our Greek brothers, but we urge the Greek Cypriots to composure and to display our superior Greek civilisation.” On September 20, following a decision by the Pan-Hellenic Committee for the Union of Cyprus, a nationwide protest was held across Greece over the Turkish violence against Greeks in Constantinople and Smyrna, as well as over the stance taken by Britain and the United States on the Cyprus question. In this context, Makarios addressed the Greek people via Athens Radio, saying: “We condemn these sorrowful events and express our wholehearted sympathy for our stricken brothers. The entire Greek people of Cyprus is taking part in today’s expression of mourning.” He then called for restraint, pointing to British responsibility, saying: “We must not, however, lose our composure or restrain our indignation, since we know that others are responsible and are the moral instigators of these events, and not the Turkish mob. Towards the Turkish element of Cyprus we will always behave with friendly feelings. We will not turn our dispute with the English into a dispute with the Turks, with the English as arbiters.” According to the Archive of the Cyprus Ethnarchy (Hellenic Cyprus, vol. VII), the same day, Archbishop Spyridon of Athens issued his own message, saying: “In the face of this outrage, the powerful remain silent, friends feign ignorance and our persecutors mock us, because they enjoy the tolerance of those whose guilt is proven. The self-styled champions of civilisation and freedom have not yet realised into what abyss they have cast these very notions. Those who believed that through what they dared to do the resolve of the Greeks could be broken and the struggle for Cyprus halted must be ignorant of Greek history. They have already recorded their own moral condemnation and heralded the vindication of the Greeks’ faith in virtue and freedom.” On September 27, addressing members of the Ethnarchy Council at a meeting convened in the aftermath of the rejection of Cyprus’s application to have the Cyprus question registered and discussed at the United Nations, Archbishop Makarios again referred to the tragic events in Constantinople and Smyrna. According to the Complete Works of Archbishop Makarios III, volume II, he said: “The only thing it achieved was to create an artificial Turkish reaction, which, in the hands of the mobs of Constantinople and Smyrna, developed into the violence now well known. Regardless of the bitterness and the deepest sorrow that we, as Greeks, feel for our compatriots who suffered in Constantinople and Smyrna, we will not divert our struggle into a Greek-Turkish dispute.” Hostages of Turkey By the time of the Tripartite Conference in London, Turkey had already secured a role in resolving the Cyprus question, ostensibly to protect the presence of Turkish Cypriots but in practice to serve British and Turkish interests. Taken as a whole, the Greeks of Constantinople can be seen, in a sense, as hostages of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, “used” by Turkey in 1955. At the same time, the Tripartite Conference marked a step towards Cyprus itself beginning to become a hostage of Turkey. 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