Just as the Saints in Orthodoxy endured the tortures of martyrdom for the sake of God, so also the grandmother Ephrosyne Proestos endured with excess bravery what she experienced at the hands of the Turks for the sake of a group of soldiers. He became the guardian angel for 12 young lads. Between a cave and death was their earthly salvation.
By Georgia Michael
August 6, 1974, the Turks managed to enter Lapithos. They were shooting in the cold. They murdered, tortured, looted. People were running away. By August 8 almost all in ruins. In one house, however, a 74-year-old Greek Cypriot woman remained there to protect and take care of 12 young men who were fighting for the homeland.
“I was lucky enough to know Mrs. Efrosyni from the first day we moved to Lapithos. We parked the chariot, which I had under my command, outside her house in Heroes' Square. He came in the afternoon and treated us to sweets, purnelles, lemonades. He asked us what was happening as there started to be heavy military movement. The next day when the battle took place, we headed for the sea area. Realizing that we were surrounded and could not escape, I suggested to my comrades that we return to the center of Lapithos in order to find the old woman. She knew the places and would guide us”, recalls the then 17-year-old Captain of the 286th Motorized Infantry Battalion from Panagiotis Paralimnitis.
Their decision was supposed to reveal to them that they had a second mother in their lives, as Mrs. Euphrosyne appeared to them as such when they asked for her help. “He agreed to help us. She took us to a burrow about fifty meters away from her house. We were hiding there for almost a month. We had full cooperation with her. He cooked for us all night, with ingredients we grabbed from looted stores. She behaved as if we were her children and protected us”.
She tricked the Turks and stayed there for her “children”.
In addition to being loving, Grandma Euphrosyne was, as it turned out, clever and a good actress as she managed to mislead the invaders and escape from confinement. When they entered the village, the Turkish soldiers gathered all the elderly in one area of Agios Theodoros to check them. “She was a midwife and had given birth to many Turkish Cypriots. She knew the Turkish language well and that helped her to trick them. Two days after the battle started, Turkish soldiers entered her house and asked her why she didn't leave like everyone else. Without missing a beat, he answered them that he allegedly heard on the radio that Bayrak called the Greeks to stay in their homes and that Turkey came to bring peace”.
So with incredible skill and theatrics he managed to convince them. At the risk of her life she continued her work not knowing how long she would last.
She cooked and with various tricks approaching the burrow, alerted them and hid the food in the reeds for them to take. In addition to this, the 74-year-old woman often performed the duties of a guard after she informed the soldiers about whether the Turks were in the area so that they would know if they would come out of the cave even a little.
They stripped her, tied her to a military jeep and dragged her
The days were nightmarishly difficult. The Turks had not realized anything until the mistake was made. Then the Turks arrested her and imprisoned her in the castle of Kyrenia. He suffered very severe torture. But her bravery did not allow her to say a word to the Turks. He didn't confess either where we were, or who or how many there were.”
The barbarians thought that by humiliating her the 74-year-old would “break” but finally her silence defeated the conqueror, lifted her up and redeemed her lads. “She suffered savage beatings, artificial suffocations and mock executions. In fact, they stripped her, tied her behind a military jeep and dragged her through the streets around the Police Station and the Church of the Apostle Luke. It was a dramatic situation but he did not bend. Heroism, valor, pride were rooted in her. She was a real Greek. We found out what happened next when some of us were taken to the Police Station. We had seen what a bad state she was in, covered in blood.”
They were about to execute her but… she had given birth to him
Even when she met them, she kept her mouth shut and pretended not to know them. Despite the fact that one of the soldiers questioned by the Turkish interrogator said that he knew her because, seeing the state of grandmother Efrosyni, he believed that she had confessed. She, however, found the mental strength, through her wounded body, to stand up and fool the Turks once again while making the soldier understand that she had not confessed.
Nevertheless A 74-year-old woman was taken to the firing squad. But she was miraculously saved, since the Turk who stood in front of her to give her the free shot was one of the babies she gave birth to.
“She was taken for execution, but the officer who would kill her was one of the children born to Turkala mother. He told her in Turkish that he would gouge out her eyes so she could see when he shook her brains out. But when he saw the Officer, he asked him about his father. The Turk became agitated and told him that she was the midwife who gave birth to his mother. Moved by the revelation, he decided not to carry it out.”
Afterwards, grandmother Frosini was taken back to occupied Lapithos from where she was expelled in May 1975. She herself, years later, confided that the most horrible and soul-destroying torture she received from the Turks was artificial drowning. Par’ all these values and her faith in God did not leave her room to even think about confessing.
“It was all God's. On September 25, the day we were freed, we soldiers who were guarded by this heroine, our Church celebrates Saint Euphrosyne. The day Mrs. Ephrosyne of Lapithos died, April 17, 1993, was the day the bells rang for the Good Word of the Resurrection. Nothing happened by accident. We live thanks to Panagia and Mrs. Frosiny”, says one of those twelve young men, Mr. Panagiotis Paralimnitis, full of emotion and gratitude.
Ms. Frosiny died on April 17, 1993, at the age of ninetyand was buried in the New Cemetery of Nicosia, far from her beloved Lapithos and with the desire for freedom.
