Benedict XVI will be in Cyprus 4-6 June 2010.

According to informed sources, the main purpose of the visit, to take place 4-6 June, will be to deliver to Church leaders from across the Middle East a summary of issues to be discussed at the Special Synod of Bishops on the Middle East. The summary is otherwise known as an Instrumentum Laboris. The synod is scheduled to take place in Rome 10 - 24 October 2010.

Benedict XVI had been invited by both local Cypriot Catholics, the Orthodox archbishop, Chrisostomos II, and the country's government. The President of Cyprus, Demetris Christofias, issued a personal invitation when he met the Pope at the Vatican in March this year.

There is still no official program and plans need to be finalized. A Vatican committee will be traveling to Nicosia, the country's capital, in December to organize an itinerary. Benedict XVI will be staying in the city and is almost certain to make a stopover in Paphos where St. Paul preached (see Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 13, verses 4-13). Pilgrims from Lebanon, the Holy Land, and Greece are expected to join the Pope for the historic visit.

Three months ago, the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Antonio Franco, told the Orthodox archbishop, the president of Cyprus, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, the Vicar to Cyprus, and the Maronite archbishop of the Pope's wish to travel to the country. The heads of the UN Mission to Cyprus and the country's minister of foreign affairs were also informed.

John Paul II also wished to visit Cyprus, the second largest Mediterranean island after Sicily and Sardinia, and include a stop in Paphos. It was hoped the visit would take place during his Jubilee pilgrimage to Greece, Syria and Malta (4-9 May 2001). However, the project was shelved as he already an intense itinerary and adding a further leg to the journey was a risk to his health.

The Small Catholic Community of Cyprus

The Maronites. One of the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, they landed in Cyprus from Syria, Lebanon and the Holy Land in four successive waves between the 8th and 13th centuries. Evidence dating back to 1192 shows them to have been a very active community. In the 13 th century they numbered at least 50,000 and resided in 60 villages. Due to occasional hardships and poor treatment by the country's rulers, the Maronite villages were gradually reduced to the current four (Kormakiti, Asomatos, Karpashia and Agia Marina), located in the area under Turkish control. Elderly remained in the villages (Agia Marina was abandoned completely), while the young people fled south. Today there are about 6,000 Maronites in the whole island and they speak their own dialect. Their eight parishes form a diocese, entrusted in October 2008 to 47 year old Archbishop Antoine Youssef Soueif. Their liturgies are celebrated in Arabic and Aramaic, but many parts are now translated into Greek.

The Latins. Under the pastoral authority of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Archbishop Fouad Twal, their Vicar for Cyprus is 79 year old Father Umberto Barato. Latins with Cypriot citizenship number about 2,000 on the island. In addition there are 7,000 Latins who reside there permanently but who are not Cypriots, along with at least 15,000 temporary foreign workers, mostly Filipinos.

The Friars Minor of the Custody of the Holy Land have long been resident in Cyprus. It is likely that St. Francis of Assisi, on his way to the Holy Land, stayed on the island for some time and left some of his followers on the island.

Under the reign of Lusignan (1192-1489) and the domination of the Venetian Republic (1489-1570), the friars and the Poor Clares founded several monasteries, partly because they were forced to leave the Holy Land under the Muslim advance. In 1571, when Cyprus was taken over by the Ottomans, the Turks only allowed the Orthodox and the Maronites to stay. So the friars left the island, along with the other religious orders, and the Latin churches became mosques or were passed over to the Orthodox.

In 1593, the Franciscans were allowed to return and settle where they are now: in the cities of Nicosia, Larnaca and Limassol. Still today, they are responsible for three of the four parishes on the island and the Latin-rite Terra Sancta College, one of the oldest schools in the country, founded in 1646. The last parish created was that of Paphos, entrusted to the responsibility of a priest of the Latin Patriarchate: Father John Sansour.

In the life of the Latin community in Cyprus, the contribution of the sisters is crucial. They work in catechesis, assist the poor, immigrants and the elderly and help in Catholic schools. Four institutions are present: the Congregation of St. Joseph of the Apparition, the Congregation of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the Franciscan Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, the cloistered nuns of the Monastic Family of Bethlehem and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and of St. Bruno (an eremitic monastery on the outskirts of Paphos).