The surprising case of the Guayaquil man who aspired to the reign of Cyprus

By Rodolfo Pérez Pimentel *

With great ostentation they resided in a luxurious apartment full of antiques and family memories, located no less than in the center of Madrid, Luis Macías y García from Guayaquil and their spouse Carmen Duroy de Bruignac. They formed a united and apparently happy marriage and when our compatriots traveled to Europe, the first thing they did was visit them in the Spanish capital.

I came to treat Luis a lot in the 90s, when he returned to Guayaquil. In one of those meetings, Luis told me the following:

In July 1964, during a cocktail offered by the ambassador of Ireland, while conversing with Prince Nicholas of Romania we were introduced to the ambassador of Turkey and after a while our conversation turned to the endless international conflict in Cyprus, a country that had a Greek Orthodox Christian majority with a Turkish Muslim minority.

I told the ambassador that I could aspire to the throne of Cyprus for my father and for my mother, that they were first cousins ​​to each other and both descended several times from the ancient kings Alexios Comneno and Isaac the angel, emperors of Byzantium. The ambassador was interested in the matter and the next day he invited me to his house; He convinced me to accept the reign and its consequences and ended up giving me several plane tickets.

First I was in Athens, where I wrote my official statement assuming the responsibility of the crown of Cyprus in exile and the title of Duke of Nicosia, by agreement of my advice. I immediately left for Istanbul, where I was instructed to travel to Ankara. I was greeted at the airport with royal honors and gave several interviews that appeared in the main newspapers of the world, since it had the support of the Turkish government and the war in Cyprus was international news since the beginning of the independence struggles of General Jorge Grivas against the English.

By then the island was presided over by Archbishop Makarios, tough and dark man despite his religious condition and capable of any crime to achieve his political purposes. The Turkish government let me know that I should move to the central mountains of the island and lead the Turkish-Cypriot guerrillas in order to take power from Makarios and the Greeks, and assume command and my throne. Deep down, the Turks just wanted to ridicule the archbishop to the world and cause him greater problems, but that didn’t matter to me … because I didn’t even have the pleasure of meeting him.

In the crosshairs of terrorism

In the hotel in Ankara the following anecdote occurred to me: I noticed that a fat man was following me very insistently and, not being able to contain myself, I turned around and asked him in French what he wanted. He replied that his mistress wanted to be a countess. Pay me four hundred dollars for the Cypriot Red Cross and I grant you your wish today. The fat man paid delightedly and soon after I sent him from Madrid the corresponding diploma and tenuta in favor of his wife, signed, sealed and sealed by my royal hand. Later I had the opportunity to sell more titles in Europe and America. They were going to look for me especially for it, pestering me even at night, to give the wish of the figuration of humanity.

Four days after the episode of the fat Turk, I arrived incognito in Nicosia, I stayed in a very discreet hotel, because the next day I was going to contact my secret agents, But at around two in the morning I heard a noise at the door of my room, I opened it and I saw a package on the floor of the corridor and a subject fleeing quickly towards the elevator. I understood that it was a bomb, possibly a plastic explosive – then very fashionable – and I also ran, but to the opposite side and it had not been more than 5 seconds when I heard a horrible explosion that knocked down the door of my room and destroyed almost everything inside.

I knew immediately that it was a warning gift that the fierce archbishop had sent me And I reacted quickly by picking up what little was left of my luggage on the ground, I paid the hotel bill as best I could, took a taxi to Famagusta airport and left by plane to Athens, thus ending my short twenty-four hour reign in chaotic, almost catastrophic fashion; but The news of the attack and the detonation circulated around the world and when I arrived in Madrid I was a famous person and even one more victim of the abuses of power and international terrorism. That is why they interviewed me again and numerous commercial houses began to pay for me to attend their fashion shows and other types of first-rate social events. This year was a continuous bath of popularity for me and even for Ecuador, because in Madrid everyone recognized me my Cypriot linastic rights.

Luis Macías, in his capacity as head of “Le Maison Royale de Cyprus”, put into circulation in Guayaquil a 15-page brochure entitled The crown of Cyprus, dedicated to his personal friend the ex-king Constantino of Greece, with the arms of the Macías family stamped with the Ducal Crown, a very sane introduction, various documents and his descent back to his illustrious predecessor, the emperor of Byzantium, Fabius Nicephorus Komnenos, Duke of Astrocamia and Arguino, in the eleventh century CE. Luis was only among us for a short time, which he used to sell several properties and returned to reside in Madrid, where he lived until 1970, when his amicable separation with his wife, Baroness Carmen Duroy de Bruignac Garbe, who was Fernand’s daughter, took place. Marie, Baron Duroy de Bruignac, a native of Versailles. They had no children. (I)

* National Prize for Culture Eugenio Espejo 2005, literature category.

Editors note:

The island of Cyprus, a small country located in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, was a British territory until it gained independence in 1960, but during that decade intercommunal disturbances were accentuated between Greek and Turkish Cypriots. In 1964, troops of the United Nations Organization were even deployed for the maintenance of peace, since both ethnic groups disputed control of the entire island territory.

Current division

Luis Macías, who had a family shield, aspired to the reign supported by Turkey. On July 15, 1974, Greek officials promoted a coup against President and Archbishop Makarios III (pictured above). Five days later, Turkey militarily occupied the north. The so-called Green Line is a demilitarized zone that divides the island, as well as its capital Nicosia, into two parts, the northern (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) and the southern (Republic of Cyprus).