For most of the 20th Century, Reformed Presby­terian missionaries served in Cyprus, founding what today is the Greek Evangelical Church. American ministers who served in Cyprus have been documented like most other RPCNA ministers. However, the first two non-American ministers rarely appeared in church records and are missing from published histories of RPCNA ministers. This month’s column will take a look at these two men, Haratune Sarkissian and Apostole Egyptiades.

Sarkissian

During the 1890s, the Ottoman Turkish government sponsored widespread massacres of Armenians. European diplomats concluded that more than 100,000 Armenians died, and many others fled to the British colony of Cyprus. Congregationalist minister Rev. Haratune Sarkissian and his family were five of those Armenian refugees.

By early 1898, Sarkissian was preaching for the Cyprus mission each week, primarily among the Armenian community in Nicosia with occasional services in Larnaca. He joined the Reformed Presbyterian Church in 1899. Although he spoke no Greek, he led services in both Turkish and Armenian. He also led Bible classes and a midweek prayer meeting, and he spent extensive time visiting the homes of inquirers.

Sarkissian initially saw attendance averaging 40 people. His daughters Rachel and Hosanna taught a small multilingual school in Nicosia and attracted attention to him. However, many of his hearers left the island to find work, so the church’s numbers shrank. Even those who remained interested in his message feared to be associated with Protestants. Because of opposition from the Armenian Orthodox bishop, very few Armenians were still associating with Sarkissian by mid-1902. Despite these poor prospects, he continued evangelizing both the Armenians and the Turks until his age made it impossible.

Having passed his 80th birthday, Sarkissian retired and left Cyprus for Canada in July 1905. He had survived a long and serious illness late the previous year, and his wife was also sickly; so they and Hosanna decided to spend their final years in Toronto with their son and Rachel. Nothing more was reported of them; the Foreign Mission Board’s short history of the Cyprus mission (1948) doesn’t mention him.

Egyptiades

After a few years of missionary work in Larnaca during the 1830s, American Congregationalist missionary Daniel Ladd settled in what is now the large Turkish city of Bursa. Here, he worked with the area’s Greek Orthodox population until 1851, including a young Apostole Egyptiades, who professed faith at age 16. Ladd’s work led to the formation of the first Greek Protestant church in Turkey at the nearby town of Demirtaş, and the adult Egyptiades became their first pastor in 1867. By the end of the century, he had also served at a Christian college in Izmir in Anatolia.

Meanwhile, Reformed Presbyterian missionaries in Larnaca had founded a boys’ school. They needed a Greek preacher, and Egyptiades accepted their request for assistance. Coming in early 1901, he began preaching in Larnaca, Nicosia, and Famagusta. In mid-1904, the Syrian Commission of Synod received him into the Reformed Presbyterian Church.

The arrival of missionary brothers Calvin and Walter McCarroll in 1904 and 1905 meant fewer responsibilities for him. He turned part of his time to versifying a Greek version of the Psalms, teaching Greek to Calvin McCarroll, and evangelizing patients in the mission’s medical clinic waiting room.

By 1914, Egyptiades had retired from service, but he remained partially active into the 1920s. He died in Feb. 1925, age 97, and was survived by his wife. Mrs. Egyptiades oversaw a girls’ branch of the American Academy in Larnaca after her husband died, and their daughters taught at the American Academy for Girls in Nicosia.