We never thought that religion will be a source of tourism. Russian, Ukraine, Egypt (those who are Copts) and other Orthodox countries have shown an added interest in Cyprus based partly on religion.

We are now experiencing a new interest mainly by Russians, Russian-speaking tourists.  It seems that some of these nations are more religious than we are, in the sense that they treat the church with much more respect than we do. 

We use our churches, amongst other things, for political speeches, have national flags hanging on the ceiling and people chatting during the ceremony with the psalms just being background “music”.

This is partly the fault of our ceremony which is held in ancient Greek, where very few people understand what it’s all about, they get bored and start chatting with their neighbour in church. 

During the course of our business (sale of real estate etc) we get a lot of enquiries regarding religious places to visit, especially for out of the way chapels which are usually placed in a beautiful environment, on hills and even right on the beach.   

These isolated chapels are now in fashion ranging from weddings, christenings etc, whereas caterers can provide all necessary food, tents, mobile toilets etc. Bear in mind that all Christian denominations can use the local churches (subject to the local Bishop’s approval).

 

We came up with the idea of seeking the Archbishop’s help on the matter and we were introduced to the Bishop of Mesaoria at the Archbishopric.

 

An enthusiastic, computer-literate young person, who has surprised us, not only because the church has a website on the subject (www.churchofcyprus.org.cy) in 4 languages but he told us that at any reasonable time any visitor even 1 or 2 persons wishing to visit any chapel, he will arrange a tour through the local church representative, to show them around and explain the history etc (at no cost but a small contribution say €30 – our suggestion – in the church box would be appreciated).

We must say we got a very pleasant shock and we thought, here we are, we can place these outings on our website and offer this facility as well through the Bishop. 

There are lovely stories-history behind each church, little did we know that Tripiotis church (a Nicosia chapel – translated “the church with a hole”) has its own history. 

Nicosia at the time was flooded and the people ran to the church asking God for help. God appeared and with a stroke of his cane created a big hole towards which all the flood water was drawn, and Nicosia dried out. 

Lovely story and the hole (now a well) is still there (similar to Moses exodus of the Jews from Egypt). We are aware that there are no fixed excursions for such religious visits, but by renting a car people can explore.

This is another plus for real estate promotion, used with the correct Christian meaning, but it is interesting to note the volume of demand. The Bishop reported that there are approximately 3,000 visits to chapels every year and this in addition to the town churches. 

In one of the projects that we manage at Pissouri, we built a small chapel fully decorated by one of the project’s local residents, a British artist with beautiful murals on the ceiling named St. Demetrios. 

 

The bell was gifted to the church by a Russian resident and a number of icons by the locals.  Alas, the Paphos Bishopric does not allow us any religious activities in it, since it must belong to the Bishopric and not to individuals. 

 

But if not Cypriots, we suspect that weddings, christenings etc can take place there.

This is a major attraction for the project, and we have had two “engagements” (exchange of vows) in it and two pending christenings – Lovely and touching to have these sort of events in “one’s garden”. 

We are now hoping to organise an Easter celebration in the churchyard not only relating to food etc, but also having (he is still considering) the local priest and a Limassol chorus – if they come for little money. 

A religious festivity with a message of love to all residents.  We cannot say that we sold more properties than otherwise (had we not had this chapel) but it is something that people come to like more and more.  Who knows how all this will progress in the future?

Choosing a residence close to a proper church mind you can be a problem due to nuisance (we tend to have megaphones so that the psalms are heard far away) and never-ending fireworks that frighten people during Easter, but not for chapels. 

We tend to relate all Russian speakers as being Russians but had the recent Ukrainian troubles not happened, Ukrainians would have formed the majority of Russian speakers in terms of home purchases/investment. 

 

On the one hand, one can argue that the troubles will encourage those wealthy Ukrainians to seek a permanent residency/ passport under the Cyprus measures, but although welcomed, this is not a sustainable source of demand. 

Everything emanates from tourists and then it is followed by real estate investments. It is beyond us for example how Crete with its (+)2 million tourists (as much as Cyprus) has 1 million Germans and Cyprus nearing 100,000 only.  

Germany suffered a tremendous death toll of its soldiers during WWII and with cemeteries for German soldiers in Crete, they are still going (quite correctly) but then why not Cyprus?   

Keeping on the subject of religion should we build a couple of chapels for the German tourists/residents to be? 

 

We also seem to have ignored the UK-based tour operators and with their tourist numbers going down yearly, the Cyprus Government has undertaken a charm offensive in that country in hope of interest renewal in civil weddings in chapels as well as christenings. 

During the years of the tourist Cyprus boom (the 1980’s) the country was very much in demand by the Northern European countries especially Sweden.   

There was a time that we set up a sales office in Stockholm and we employed 2 Swedish sales staff in Cyprus to cope with. 

 

Now almost nowhere to be found.  Now that circumstances are tough and now that Egypt and other Arab countries have lost a big share of tourists, it is time to investigate the situation and ascertain the route towards recovery. 

One of the reasons for Cyprus’ failure, we are told, is the restriction on chartered flights and as proof of this, Crete with no direct flights still attracts the same number of tourists as Cyprus.

The protection that the past Governments offered to state-run Cyprus Airways, restricting chartered flights is one of the reasons which have cost us dearly for the sake of say 2,000 jobs of the Cyprus Airways staff. Will we ever learn?  

Financial Mirror

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