Since 2008 a committee drawn jointly from both parts of Cyprus has identified monuments of cultural significance, mostly deserted centres of worship, to be resurrected.
“It must be like this, because if they collapse, we would be angry at one another,” Seyfi Tunelci said. “But if we rebuild them, we will be friends again.”
Like many Turkish Cypriots, 62-year-old Tunelci fled north in 1974 when Cyprus was divided amid a Turkish invasion into a breakaway north and an ethnically Greek, internationally-recognised south.
The Orthodox Christian monastery at Myrtou, Agios Panteleimonas, named after an early Christian saint renowned as a faith healer, traces its foundation to the 5th century. After its monks and parishioners joined thousands of Greek Cypriots fleeing south in 1974, a Turkish army garrison moved in, followed by legions of pigeons and snakes.
Agios Panteleimonas became one of hundreds of Christian sites, including cemeteries, abandoned to vandals in the north, while scores of abandoned mosques and other Islamic sites in the south fell into a similar state of decay.
CROWNING GLORY
Ali Tuncay, a Turkish Cypriot businessman on the Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage, says their crowning achievement so far has been an inter-faith agreement to restore the Apostolos Andreas Monastery on Cyprus’ northeast Karpas Peninsula. The site honours St. Andrew, one of Jesus’ disciples, who reputedly brought forth a miraculous spring on the spot for the salvation of passing sailors.
Christians and Muslims alike made the site a popular point of pilgrimage and worship until partition 42 years ago. Year-old reconstruction efforts are being funded directly by the two primary Muslim and Orthodox Christian authorities on Cyprus, not the EU, in an effort expected ultimately to cost 6 million euros.
The committee has identified 40 sites for initial repair, followed by 80 more. Among the Muslim sites on the Greek Cypriot side already restored are four mosques, an Ottoman water mill and a hammam — a heated bathhouse.
Back in Myrtou, archaeologists and engineers are planning how best to reclaim a monastery hit by erosion, water damage and occupiers’ destructive whitewashing of medieval frescoes.
The first phase of work, supported by 725,000 euros in EU funds, seeks to reinforce sandstone walls in a compound that includes a church, monks’ residences and guesthouses. Hopes exist to use original timbers, sandstone blocks and mud bricks to restore the monastery to its pre-partition splendour.
Source: AP
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