Church service held for first time in 42 years

Around 300 people on Sunday attended a service at the occupied Kanakaria church in Lythangomi.

The three hour service was led by the Karpasia bishop Christoforos.

Those at the service included the vice president of Disy George Hadigeorgiou and Disy Famagusta MPs George Karoullas, Kyriakos Hadjiyiannia and Onoufrios Koullas.

The Byzantine church was twice destroyed by the Arab crusades but was rebuilt in the 1770s. The last church service was held there in 1976 before the village of Lythrangomi was abandoned.

The church was restored with a UNDP project. Village leader of Lythangomi Iraklis Ioannou said another service would soon be held in the church.

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.