Paper short abstract:

Focusing on the Monastery of Apostolos Andreas in the Turkish-occupied peninsula of Karpasia (Cyprus), the paper explores how pilgrimage is framed and constructed on different scales and in different locations by inquiring into the non-religious contexts in which its images circulate.

Paper long abstract:

The paper explores how pilgrimage is framed and constructed on different scales and in different ‘institutional locations’ (Coleman and Eade 2018: 16), by inquiring into the non-religious contexts in which its images circulate. Looking at the Greek-Cypriot pilgrimages to the Christian Orthodox Monastery of Apostolos Andreas in the Turkish-occupied peninsula of Karpasia (Cyprus), it focuses on a particular photograph of the Monastery which features on the back cover of school exercise books along with the phrase ‘I Do not Forget’. It argues that the circulation of the Monastery’s picture within the context of the educational policy of ‘I Do not Forget’, and the site’s juxtaposition with other occupied sites, the images of which also feature on the covers of school exercise-books, transform the Monastery into a site of memory, and a political symbol of occupation and struggle for return. This frames the pilgrimage experience of those who were born after Cyprus’s division (1974) and who had never been to the site before the opening of the checkpoints (2003), making it a recognizable and familiar part of their landscape.