1 Sovereign Archbishop Makarios III

Archbishop Makarios III was simultaneously head of state and head of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus — a dual authority that made him a genuinely singular figure in post-colonial governance. This gold sovereign was struck just eight years after independence from Britain, during a period when Cyprus was still navigating the violent intercommunal conflict between Greek and Turkish Cypriots that had erupted in 1963 and prompted the UN peacekeeping deployment in 1964.

The "X#" prefix in the standard reference places this outside the main coinage sequence — a non-circulating issue, likely produced for export or presentation purposes rather than domestic use.