Panagia Kanakaria

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Panagia Kanakaria from the west

Panagia Kanakaria (Gr. Παναγία Κανακαριά ) is a Byzantine church in Lythrangomi (Turkish: Boltaşlı) in the west of the Karpas peninsula in northeastern Cyprus . The building is best known for its early Byzantine apse mosaic , which fell victim to an art theft (comparable to the fall of Panagia tis Kyras , a few kilometers to the west).

Building history

View from the south

The Panagia Kanakaria ( Panagia the 'All Saints' is a common name for the Virgin Mary in the Greek Orthodox liturgy) was built around 500 as an early Christian basilica and served as the church building of an early Byzantine settlement. This first building was a three-aisled , wood-covered column basilica with a narthex , an anteroom at the entrance on the west side, and three apses on the east side. The apse mosaic was created in the 530s. In the middle of the 7th century, the building was destroyed by Muslim pirates.

After several decades, the church was rebuilt around 700, but has now received in lieu of pillars brick pillars . This second building survived the iconoclast of the 8th and 9th centuries unscathed, but fell victim to an earthquake around 1160. Only the apse remained.

The building has now been rebuilt as a multi-domed church: the main nave, narthex and bema (chancel) each received a dome , two of them with a drum . The apse with its mosaics was now encased and thus integrated into the new church, similar to the Panagia tis Kyras in Livadia and the Panagia Angeloktisti in Kiti . A monastery was probably built around the church around this time . The monastery building that exists today, however, probably dates from the 18th century. In the 13th century the south aisle was renewed and an open porch was added in front of the entrance. In 1491 the central dome collapsed due to another earthquake and was rebuilt around 1500, the walls were also embellished with numerous new frescoes , of which, however, hardly anything can be seen today. The bell tower was added in 1888.

After the expulsion of the Greek Cypriots as a result of the Cyprus conflict in 1974, the church was closed for lack of use; today it can only be viewed from the outside as a tourist attraction.

Apse mosaic

Cross vault and apse of Panagia Kanakaria in 2012.
Mosaic fragments returned to the Republic of Cyprus in the Icon Museum in South Nicosia

The apse mosaic was created in the 30s of the 6th century. In the early Byzantine style, it showed the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus , seated on an ivory throne and surrounded by a mandorla . The archangels Michael and Gabriel stand by their side . This representation is framed by a border decorated with ornaments , which in turn is followed by 12 apostle medallions in the apse reveal.

The mosaic, consisting of more than 40 shades, was composed of glass tesserae in various colors, glass cubes covered with gold and silver plates and colored marble and stone cubes.

Since the glass mosaic stones were said to have healing properties, pilgrims repeatedly removed individual pieces of the mosaic over the centuries.

Much worse destruction occurred in 1978/79: art thieves took advantage of the politically uncertain conditions after the Turkish invasion, broke into the church and almost completely knocked the mosaic out of the wall. In addition to Panagia Kanakaria, numerous other churches were affected. The objects disappeared for a few years.

In the meantime, the responsible authority of the Republic of Cyprus found out about the robbery indirectly through a tourist at the end of 1979, for which the North Cypriot government was partly responsible. In 1983 the Menil Collection in Houston bought several small mosaic fragments from the Turkish Munich art dealer Aydın Dikmen through a middleman . Since the origin of the pieces was easy to determine, the art treasures, after they had been exhibited in the USA for some time, were forwarded to the Republic of Cyprus without specifying the origin and without calling in the police. A much larger part of the mosaics was initially withheld, and from 1985 Dikmen tried to find a buyer. In 1988 he was successful, for $ 1.2 million an important part of the looted property, four mosaic fragments, went to an art dealer from Indiana who was probably unaware of the stolen goods and subsequently tried to sell the pieces to the J. for $ 20 million Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California for sale. The looted property was discovered, reclaimed by the Cypriot Orthodox Church and the art dealer was legally forced to return it to Cyprus. However, since the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was not recognized internationally, the fragments did not return to the Panagia Kanakaria, but ended up in the Icon Museum (Byzantine Museum) in South Nicosia .

Although his name was known, Aydın Dikmen's property was not searched; however, he was convicted of tax evasion because he had not paid tax on his profits from trading. It was not until 1997, at the urging of Tasoulla Hadjittofi , the Cypriot honorary consul in The Hague , that Dikmen's Munich apartments were searched. Extensive art treasures from various churches and monasteries in Northern Cyprus were discovered; With an estimated value of 70 million marks, it was one of the largest art thefts of the past decades. After years of litigation in German courts, the objects were not handed over to the Republic of Cyprus until the end of 2010, although larger parts of the mosaic, including parts of the figure of Mary, the mandorla, the throne and the archangels, are still missing and are probably to be found in various illegal art collections . In the church itself, only marginal fragments of the mosaic can be found today.

In 1991 the Cypriot Post published a series of stamps with the mosaics of Panagia Kanakaria as a motif.

literature

  • Arthur HS Megaw, Ernest JW Hawkins: The Church of the Panagia Kanakariá at Lythrankomi in Cyprus. Its mosaics and frescoes , Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 1977.
  • Andreas Schneider: Cyprus , DuMont, 2005, p. 293f.

Web links

Commons : Panagia Kanakaria  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 35 ° 28 '42 "  N , 34 ° 9' 55"  E