Bishop Warns Yes Voters in Cyprus Will Go to Hell

Be good and you will inherit the kingdom of heavens, said Jesus. Vote yes in Cyprus's crucial referendum on April 24 and you will go to hell - or so says a Greek Cypriot bishop.

He has warned Orthodox Greek Cypriots they face damnation if they approve a complex plan to reunite the island drafted by the United Nations.

"Those who say "yes" will be party to this injustice, will lose their homeland and the kingdom of heavens," Bishop Paul said in a sermon on Sunday quoted in newspapers on Monday.

The firebrand cleric, whose diocese is Kyrenia in Turkish-held northern Cyprus, was displaced when the island divided in 1974 and is based in Nicosia.

The United Nations power-sharing blueprint is designed to get a united island into the European Union on May 1, but it has got short-shift from a majority of Greek Cypriots.

Opinion polls show Greek Cypriots are against the reunification blueprint because of concerns over their future security. Turkish Cypriots, who have been isolated for decades, are strongly in favor.

The east Mediterranean island has been divided since a Turkish invasion in 1974 triggered by a Greek Cypriot coup engineered by the military then ruling Greece.