Remanded after seven years over church theft

A 66-YEAR-old man was yesterday remanded in custody for eight days in connection with a seven-year-old theft of two antique church doors from the church of Panayia Podithou in Galata, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The church doors were stolen between January 19 and 21, 2003. The thieves broke into the Galata church and removed the doors that led to the sanctuary.
According to police spokesman Michalis Katsounotos, the suspect claims that he was acting as an intermediary. “The evidence has been transferred to the Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics where (DNA) tests will be carried out that will give us a broader picture of the matter,” Katsounotos added.
The church of Panayia Podithou is located in the central area of the Troodos mountain range, some hundred metres north of the village of Galata. Panayia Podithou was included in the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1985 along with nine other churches of the Troodos area, all of which are adorned with murals and are important monuments of Byzantine and post-Byzantine religious art.
The church was part of a monastery that was abandoned in the beginning of the 19th century and was converted into the first primary school of Galata in 1850. According to the dedicatory inscription on the external part of the western wall, the church and monastery were built in 1502 with a donation by Demetrios de Coron, a captain of the Pentageia barony, and his wife Helen.
The building is single-aisled with a steep-pitched timber roof. A later portico surrounds the three sides of the church. The roof shelters both the church and the portico and it is covered with flat tiles.
The church was never entirely painted, and features mostly mural paintings that are contemporary to the church. Murals of the Apostles Peter and Paul, that decorate the north and south walls respectively, date to the 17th century.
Some of the scenes in the church are considered to be the best examples of Italobyzantine painting, a style that combines Byzantine and Italian Renaissance elements. The style started spreading throughout the island with the Venetians’ arrival in Cyprus.
The iconostasis of the Panayia of Podithou church is another important relic that increases the church’s significance. First constructed in 1502, the wood-carved iconostasis was re-gilded in 1783 and consists of late Gothic and Renaissance elements. It is one of the earliest examples of this type that appeared in many Greek lands that were under the influence of Venice.

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.