Returned icons given a new home

By Peter Stevenson
THE Byzantine Museum next to the Archbishopric is now home to the four icons of Apostles Peter, Paul, John and Mark which were returned to Cyprus’ Ambassador to the Netherlands by Dutch Authorities last week.
The 16th-century icons portraying the four apostles, valued at about €150,000, were taken from the mediaeval Antiphonitis monastery Kyrenia in 1975. Legal efforts by the Church of Cyprus to recover the icons failed in 2002 after a seven-year legal battle but a change in Dutch law in 2007 allowed the government to finally lay claim to the artworks.
The icons were handed back to Cyprus by the Dutch government in The Hague last Wednesday, following a request submitted by Cypriot authorities to the Netherlands, based on the provisions of the 2007 Dutch Law on restitution of cultural goods originating from an occupied territory.
Speaking at a welcoming ceremony for the icons Tuesday Communications Minister Tasos Mitsopoulos revealed that a large haul of icons and mosaics are expected to be repatriated from Munich in October.
“It is a great pleasure and thrill that we welcome back the four icons just like other pieces of our cultural heritage that were looted during the invasion,” he said.
Through patience and cooperation with the relevant authorities and following a change in Dutch law the icons which date back to the 16th century were repatriated the minister said.
They will be kept at the Byzantine Museum in Nicosia until they can be taken back to the Antiphonitis monastery.
“In October a large number of icons and mosaics will be returned from Germany and we hope that soon we can welcome back the rest of our religious artefacts that remain in Munich,” he said.
Mitsopoulos said the return of the icons shows a positive climate which will facilitate the return of any remaining religious artefacts and gives Cyprus hope that through better cooperation with other countries more works of art can be returned.
He thanked the Church, legal services, the Foreign Ministry, the Byzantine Museum and the Antiquities Department for their help in the whole process.
During his speech Archbishop Chrysostomos II said that he hoped there would be more similar gatherings like the one today that would see the return of looted religious artefacts.
He thanked the Dutch Embassy’s delegate who was present at the ceremony and asked him to convey the government’s gratitude to the Dutch government for changing the law which saw the return of the four icons.
The legislation is based on the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict and its First Protocol, inter alia, provides that each contracting state undertakes to return to the authorities of the state of origin cultural property which has been exported illegally from an occupied territory.
“As the minister said we hope that soon we will be able to welcome back other artefacts, both religious and non-religious which will come from Munich. Thankfully it was recognised that they are Cypriot icons and it is only a matter of time until they are all returned,” the Archbishop said.
Over 170 religious artefacts including icons, murals and mosaics from the stolen collection of Turkish looter Aydin Dikmen were returned to the Republic of Cyprus in a special ceremony in Munich in July. They are due to be returned to Cyprus in October.
In the case of the four icons repatriated yesterday, it is assumed that they were removed from the monastery in 1975 and were bought through an Armenian art dealer to an elderly Dutch couple between 1975 and 1977.
Their effort to auction the icons through Christie’s in 1995 resulted in the auction house referring the couple to the Cypriot authorities due to the suspicious provenance of the icons.
The couple then contacted Tasoula Hadjitoffi, who was serving as Consul of the Republic in the Netherlands, whereby she informed the authorities.

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.