According to its author, this book seeks to explain how Cypriots preserved their Byzantine Orthodox heritage under Latin rule, adapting this heritage under changing circumstances. He claims his work to be the first to stress multi-layered or multiple identities in this context, going beyond the ethnocentric approach which stressed the survival of Hellenism in the face of Latin oppression and the revisionist approach which emphasised multi-ethnic co-existence. It is in essence a skilfully argued apology for the Greek Church of Cyprus. As the author acknowledges, he does not aim for objectivity and is writing ‘from the perspective of a British-trained Byzantinist who is also a Greek Cypriot and a practising member of the Eastern Orthodox Church’. This explains his refusal to regard the Orthodox Christians of Cyprus as Uniates even after their Church had acknowledged papal primacy in 1260. He regards this submission as a survival strategy, ‘the price that the Orthodox had to pay in exchange for maintaining their ecclesiastical organisation and rite under the Latins’. Acknowledging that Orthodox Cypriots included Syrian Melkites and Georgians, he excludes an exhaustive analysis of these groups as beyond the scope of his book, focusing on the Greeks.

In chapter i the author analyses ways in which Greek Cypriots maintained their Orthodox heritage by employing varied forms of resistance. He emphasises two phenomena, non-coercive resistance to the Latins and superficial submission, while admitting that martyrdom for refusing to accept Latin doctrines was also chosen by a determined few like the thirteen monks of the monastery of Kantariotissa. He acknowledges that the Orthodox and the Latins had points in common, such as their Chalcedonian position on the two natures of Christ, while the Cyprus Passion Cycle arguably illustrates the cultural interaction between Roman Catholic Benedictine monks and Orthodox Christians. The pragmatic co-existence with the Latins of Greek Cypriot monks at the monasteries of Agros and Stylos compares with that practised by their colleagues on Mt Athos and Sinai.

In chapter ii Kyriacou discusses the co-existence of Greeks and Latins after 1260, observing that it was assisted by the influx of Christians from Syria. The Latins from Syria were familiar with non-Latins and so better able to co-exist with them. He stresses how boundary building enabled the Orthodox, those Christians following the Greek rite, to practise identity adaptation, preserving communal (private) and intercommunal (public) spheres of spirituality in line with expediency. While the Latin Church tolerated different rites if these did not conflict with Roman Catholic doctrine and so long as their practitioners accepted papal primacy, Orthodox criticisms of the Latin rite were motivated by theological and ecclesiological reasons. On Cyprus the Latins were covertly attacked through crypto-religious means: church ritual, iconography, memory as resistance through the composition of written religious narratives and the transmission and control of Orthodox tradition by monks and bishops, who used catechisms to guide the laity. Spiritual boundary markers such as unleavened bread, theophany and prostration before the eucharist were also employed in order to preserve and transmit Orthodox identity.

In chapter iii Kyriakou argues that the prosperity of the fourteenth century created a class of Orthodox prelates and literati on Cyprus who built an imposing Greek cathedral in Famagusta and tried unsuccessfully to place the Syrian Melkites under the jurisdiction of the Greek Church. Latins began crossing over to the Greek rite, forcing the Latin Church to begin its own boundary building, such as prohibiting the passage of Latins to the Greek rite through marriage, because they wished to preserve their separate religious identity. He then discusses how Palamite Hesychasm affected Cyprus. Initially opposed by conservative theologians in Byzantium, it became official Orthodox doctrine by 1351. Kyriacou argues that the Greek clergy on Cyprus, initially opposed to it due to their own theological conservatism, not because of Latin influences, eventually accepted it by the early fifteenth century ‘in order to strengthen their role as mediators between Byzantium and Orthodoxy’.

In chapter iv Kyriacou observes that, with the weakening of the Latin ruling class on Cyprus after the 1371–4 war with Genoa and of the Latin Church after the Western Schism, Syrians and Greeks attained high office. Next, he discusses the application of the Greek prelates of Cyprus in 1405 to unite secretly with Constantinople while publicly acknowledging papal primacy. He suggests Joseph Bryennios's involvement in this matter as possibly connected to accusations that the Greek patriarch of Antioch had brought against the Greek clergy there. To support this, he states that in 1412 Bryennios, when examining a second Cypriot proposal for reconciliation with Constantinople, proposed their subjection to the Greek patriarchs of Antioch, a post hoc propter hoc argument. He also regards Bryennios's earlier confrontation with Greek monks on Crete as influencing his rejection. In short, he attributes the failure of this initiative to external factors. Regarding the Union of Latin and Greek Churches achieved in 1439 at the Council of Florence, the author states that on Cyprus its provisions were used to perpetuate boundary maintenance, although the rise of Ottoman power along with increasing royal influence over Latin and Greek Churches drew these two groups closer.

In chapter v Kyriacou discusses the impact of Venetian rule, of the Renaissance and of Protestantism on the Greeks of Cyprus. He sees various identities co-existing: Orthodoxy, anti-Ottoman sentiment, loyalty to Venice and a Westernised Cypriot identity. Protestantism affected only certain upper-class Greeks. But the diffusion of Hellenic patriotism by Diasorenos was more popular and outlived his execution. The Venetians, wishing to cement Latin-Greek unity against the Ottomans, prevented the attempted imposition by the Latin archbishop Mocenigo of Counter-Reformation measures on the Greek Church, the foundation of a Jesuit College and the expulsion of the Greek bishops. Most Cypriots therefore remained loyal to Venice during the Ottoman invasion in 1570. The book ends with a brief conclusion and three appendices containing contemporary Greek source materials.

The author argues convincingly that the practices of non-violent resistance, boundary building, multiple identities, crypto-religious practices and control and transmission of tradition ensured the successful preservation and development of Orthodox religious identity on Cyprus, despite the Church of Cyprus's formal submission to the papacy in 1260. He understates the contribution of Latin boundary building to this success, for had the Latins completely Latinised the far more numerous Greeks they would have lost their own distinct religious and ethnic identity through intermarriage. Overall, however, this book is a valuable addition to the history of Cyprus between the years 1191 and 1571 and to the ongoing arguments on how it should be perceived.