The Recognition of the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia by the Church of Cyprus during the Presidency of Archbishop Makarios

This article investigates a hitherto overlooked episode in the history of the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia, focusing on the position adopted by the Church of Cyprus during the archiepiscopacy of Makarios III — also the first President of the Republic of Cyprus. Particular attention is devoted to the role of the Soviet and Czechoslovak governments in obstructing recognition of Czechoslovak autocephaly by the Cypriot Church in 1951. The author assesses the diplomatic and ecclesiastical initiatives of the primate of the Czechoslovak Orthodox Church, supported by Patriarch Alexy I (Simansky) of Moscow, to secure Archbishop Makarios’s acknowledgment of its autocephalous status. The findings shed new light on inter-Orthodox relations in the context of Cold War ecclesiastical diplomacy and contribute to a fuller understanding of Archbishop Makarios’s international significance within twentieth-century Eastern Orthodoxy.