Greek exiles return to Gokceada for Orthodox feast

Greek Orthodox former residents and descendants return each August 15 to Gokceada, the Turkish island Greeks call Imbros, for the Feast of the Virgin Mary, with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I leading celebrations in his birthplace.

The island off Turkey's Aegean coast was once majority Greek. Many Greeks left after 1964, when Ankara closed Greek schools on Gokceada and set up an open prison on expropriated land following intercommunal violence over Cyprus. Departures accelerated after 1974, when Turkey invaded northern Cyprus in response to an Athens-backed Greek Cypriot coup seeking union with Greece.

Dino Haimandos, 77, returns every summer to the village where he grew up after leaving in 1964. He said he still feels at home on the island.

Stelyo Berber, an island-born singer who returned to live on Gokceada five years ago, is trying to revive Greek music and community life. He said the reopening of a Greek school in 2013 helped bring about 600 Greeks back, up from fewer than 70 in 2005.

The numbers remain small on an island of about 7,000 residents, rising to around 30,000 in summer. Berber said the culture is dying out. On neighbouring Tenedos, called Bozcaada in Turkish, only 15 Greeks remain, all of them elderly.