An endangered heritage

The heads of the Greek-Orthodox Church in Cyprus will be received by Benedict XVI in Rome on 16 and 17 June. News of the forthcoming audience was given to SIR by GEORGIOS , Bishop of Paphos, who recently met an ecumenical pilgrimage promoted by Brevivet in Brescia in which 21 journalists and diocesan delegates for ecumenism and the pastoral care of tourism took part. We will go to Rome, said Bishop Georgios, “to ask for the help of Benedict XVI with regard to the crisis of the partition of Cyprus. It’s difficult for our Christians to go to the churches in the Turkish-Cypriot zone. Several hundred churches, besides – added Georgios – have been deconsecrated, sacked, transformed into mosques, or even into warehouses and stables”. The Cypriot delegation will be led by the Archbishop of Cyprus Chrisostomos. Georgios, in welcoming the pilgrims, recalled “the importance of dialogue and exhorted those present to overcome their differences to bear witness of unity to Europe and to the world”.A SERIOUS PROBLEM. 77 churches transformed into mosques, 133 places of worship and monasteries deconsecrated, 18 churches converted into warehouses, barracks or military hospitals, one into a hotel and another into an art school. These include important sites dating back to the Early Christian period; others date to the Byzantine period, the period of French domination (11th to 15th century) and Venetian rule (15th-16th century). This important heritage is documented in a photographic exhibition now being held in the museum of the sacred monastery of Kykkos close to the archdiocesan curia in Nicosia. The exhibition, devoted to “Christian monuments in occupied Turkish Cyprus – Aspects and facts of an ongoing destruction”, presents a series of photographs that attest to the consequences of the Turkish invasion in 1974 on the Cypriot cultural heritage and identity in the northern zone of the island. According to CHARALAMPOS CHOTZAKOGLOU , curator of the exhibition, “Christian churches are collapsing. If they have not been converted into mosques, they are being used by the army or used for other purposes, even reduced to chicken-coops or stables”. “Important artefacts from them have been traced in the USA, Japan and in international auction houses, as ascertained also by reports drawn up by experts of the Council of Europe”, he explains. The press office of the Cypriot government (www.moi.gov.cy/pio – www.mfa.gov.cy) attests that over 500 Greek-Orthodox churches and chapels have either been demolished or are at risk in the northern zone of the island. attests that over 500 Greek-Orthodox churches and chapels have either been demolished or are at risk in the northern zone of the island.WHERE ARE 15,000 ICONS? To this day it is not known what has happened to the objects and sacred furnishings of these churches that once contained a heritage of over 15,000 icons. The most important of these, report some sources, have been sold abroad by art dealers. Some have been traced and repatriated, as in the case of the mosaics from the church of Panaria Kanakaria at Lithrangomi. The illegal export of antiquities from Cyprus remains a serious problem, denounced by various institutions such as the government’s Service of Antiquities. A similar fate has been suffered by the only Armenian monastery on the island, Ayios Makarios, which to judge from photographs taken in 1989, 1992 and 1997 is urgently in need of restoration and consolidation. But on 21 January 1998 the Turkish-Cypriot paper Kibris reported that it had been transformed into a mosque due to the beauty of its surrounding landscape. Not even international conventions have stopped, according to sources of the Republic of Cyprus, the destruction of the cultural heritage in the occupied zone. NEED FOR IMMEDIATE INTERVENTION. “In the face of this tragedy – says the Orthodox bishop of Kykkos, NIKIPHOROS , – we cannot remain silent. As Europeans we must unite our forces to put an end to the devastation and rediscover the rightful respect to give to religious freedom and human rights. Only by preserving its own religious and cultural heritage is a people able to play a role in the history of the world”. “In Cyprus – he adds – these principles are being continually violated. After the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, information on the conditions of the Christian monuments in the occupied zone is meagre, but suggests large-scale destruction from which not even the cemeteries have been spared. Cyprus, as member of the EU, is called to report and demonstrate the continuous destruction and sacking of the country’s cultural heritage. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND. The southern part of Cyprus, Greek and Christian, has been a member of the EU since 1st May 2004. The northern zone was occupied by Turkey in 1974, and continues to be controlled by Turkey with an occupying force of over 40,000 troops. Following the occupation, some 200,000 Greek-Cypriots of Orthodox Christian faith fled to the south. In 1983 Turkey created a Turkish Republic in northern Cyprus. Here live some 180,000 inhabitants, of whom over 100,000 colonists from Anatolia. A wall controlled by UN peacekeeping forces partitions the island and cuts in two the capital Nicosia. In April 2004 the UNO submitted to a referendum a plan for a confederation between the two states; but the Greek-Cypriots of the South rejected it.