I find myself emotionally affected by the reports coming out of Cyprus: "Greek Cypriots Vote with Their Feet," "Greeks Swarm Turkish-held Cyprus," and "Cypriot exiles make emotional return." The notion of being able to return to a home one hasn't seen in nearly three decades is marvellous. Perhaps there really will be a happy ending after all.

The entire region once occupied by the Ottoman Empire has seen repeated episodes of partition and what we now call ethnic cleansing for nearly two centuries. In 1923 long-established Greek Orthodox communities in Asia Minor were uprooted and sent to Greece proper, while most of Greece's Muslims were "repatriated" to Turkey. Imagine if you will a thriving Greek community in Trapezounta (now Trabzon) along the Pontic coast of Turkey. Or a thriving Muslim community in Crete. These were both realities prior to the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923. Sadly, the polyglot lands of the old Levant have been replaced by more homogeneous states on the nationalist model. Moroccan Jews? Alexandrian Greeks? Armenians in Constantinople? These have either vanished or drastically diminished.

Perhaps Cyprus will be the place where this enforced homogeneity will begin to be turned around. Let's pray so. Kyrie eleison.