ARCHBISHOP Chrysostomos II would rather see Apostolos Andreas collapse than let restoration of the hugely important monastery left in the hands of the Muslim religious endowment Evkaf.
Speaking to the state broadcaster CyBC yesterday, the Archbishop said the US Ambassador had personally taken on board the issue of the dilapidated monastery’s restoration in the occupied area of Rizokarpazo.
“The whole matter is in the hands of the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). We had a meeting the other day and are ready to invite tenders,” he said.
“One issue was raised which we rejected immediately, that Evkaf apply to the UNDP to take on and coordinate the restoration of Apostolos Andreas. We said that the owner of Apostolos Andreas is the Church, not Evkaf and to leave all that behind. In fact, I was very categorical that I would rather see Apostolos Andreas collapse, and will never accept that this monument belongs to Evkaf,” he added.
Evkaf represents Turkish religious foundations on the island.
The primate said EU ambassadors had also got involved in the matter of urgent restoration work needed for the deteriorating monastery.
“I consider the matter closed. They won’t insist on this because they realised our categorical refusal. It has also been arranged that the Bishop of Karpassia will go and conduct services there for the first time. That problem has been overcome. All will run smoothly,” said Chrysostomos.
The archbishop will meet with President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Mevlut Cavusoglu today, in a round table meeting along with Turkish Cypriot religious leader Mehmet Emin Yeltekin at the Ledra Palace hotel in the buffer zone.
Chrysostomos said he would discuss the issue of preserving religious monuments in the north.
“There are many issues to discuss (with Cavusoglu), and given that he hails from Turkey and is Turkish, a further reason is (for him) to learn the real facts about Cyprus.
“I’m considering raising the issue of the restoration of Apostolos Andreas as well as the return of the abbot of Apostolos Varnavas with his escort to resume services and for us to be allowed to fix all our Christian monuments because one after another are collapsing.”
He added: “We don’t want them to fix them but just to allow us to get inside and fix them up ourselves.”
Last March, the archbishop crossed the island’s divide for the first time since 1974 to visit Apostolos Andreas after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan gave the go-ahead to conserve and restore the monastery following nearly four decades of neglect. The structure threatens to collapse in on itself if the restoration plans fail to come to fruition.
Apostolos Andreas, on the island’s northeastern tip, is one of the most important religious monuments for Greek Cypriot pilgrims.
Situated at the tip of the Karpas peninsula, the monastery was built on the spot where the Apostle Andrew is said to have come ashore on his way to Greece in the 1st century AD. For the past 36 years under Turkish occupation it has fallen foul of neglect and the elements. The monastery buildings themselves date from the 19th century and the chapel from the 14th century. The last time work was carried out on the monastery was in 1966, and that involved merely adding a series of upper rooms.
The Karpas diocese comes under the jurisdiction of the Archbishopric.
In 2003 opponents of a US-funded UNOPS plan to restore the monastery and chapel snubbed the £1.5 million on offer in a dispute over how the restoration should take place.
The major stumbling block has been the controversial decision to demolish the guesthouses atop the monastery because the building can no longer withstand the burden of such a structure.
Opposition at the time came from the monastery’s restoration committee and from politicians including the Greens’ George Perdikis and DIKO’s Zacharias Koulias.
Although not part of the original site, the guesthouses are imprinted in the minds of refugees and the post-1974 generation of Greek Cypriots.
