Today schools in Cyprus will be closed because it is Saint George’s day. April 23 was never a school holiday in the past but became one in 2023 when a Georgios became archbishop. For 45 years before then, Saint Chrysostomos day on November 13, was a school holiday because there were two archbishops with the name Chrysostomos.

This absurd practice was introduced by Makarios, who declared his name day on January 19 a school holiday, as a reminder of the church’s control over the education of our otherwise secular state. When Makarios passed away in 1977 and Spyros Kyprianou became president, a new school holiday was introduced – Saint Spyridon day on December 12. Kyprianou had decided that schools should be closed on the president’s name day, assuming that January 19 was a holiday because Makarios was president and not because he was archbishop.

So we ended up with the absurd situation of having two school holidays, one for our president’s name day and one for our archbishop’s name day. The Saint Spyridon holiday was scrapped when Kyprianou was voted out of office in 1988, and his successor the late George Vassiliou ended this ridiculous practice. The archbishop’s name day, however, continues to be honoured with a school holiday to this day.

On his election in 2023, Georgios to his credit had tried to put an end to his practice, so students could have an extra school day, but dismissed the new arrangement being prepared by the education ministry as a joke, a point made by the Holy Synod. The synod rejected the ministry’s ludicrous proposal of giving January 7, Saint Ioannis day, as a school holiday to replace the archbishop’s name day. There would be no extra school working day, which was the archbishop’s intention. His predecessor, Chrysostomos II also tried to scrap schools closing on his name day but failed.

It is not difficult to guess why abolishing the holiday for the archbishop’s name day is so difficult. Teaching unions refuse to sacrifice even one of the many holidays their work-shy members enjoy. This was why the education ministry quite stupidly was prepared to offer a holiday on another saint’s day, in order for the unions to agree to the scrapping of the school holiday for the archbishop, considered another conquest of our work-shy teachers. Public school teachers whose school year boasts the fewest number of school days in the EU could not possibly sacrifice a holiday!

The problem is that the ministry of education cannot scrap the holiday without entering negotiations with the militant teaching unions. A government decision needs to be taken, putting an end to holidays for a saint’s day even if the teaching unions, whose members do not work on half the days of the year, disapprove. We have enough national holidays and religious public holidays without offering additional days off for teachers.