Saint’s icon marks service in a tent

XYLOTYMBOU villagers yesterday gathered on the British base at Dhekelia for a special holy service which was held in a tent some 200 metres from the ruins of the Church of St Ioannis in Turkish-occupied Pergamos.

It was in 1911 that the last service was held in the Church of St Ioannis. That was just before Orthodox Greek Cypriots decided to abandon the building and spirited away two icons of the saint to what were then thought to be safer quarters. Turks later razed the church to the ground, carting off its stones for use in building houses in Pergamos.

One of the two icons was brought into the tent for yesterday’s service. The icon is housed in a small church built for it in Xylotymbou; the other icon remains in occupied Lysi, where it was taken years before the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus.

Yesterday’s service was instigated by Father Kyriacos Panayiotou, who wants the old church, which dates from the Byzantine period and was built on top of the saint’s grave, to be rebuilt. This would require a settlement of the Cyprus problem.

British Bases Spokesman Captain Jon Brown said yesterday’s service went off without incident.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.