THE HISTORIC Apostolos Andreas monastery at the tip of the Karpass peninsula must be very close to collapsing for our political and church leaders to have given their go-ahead to the carrying out of restoration work. Of course, this is no guarantee that the project will be undertaken, because the start of work had been announced on several occasions in the past, without anything being done.
The first attempt was made in 2003, with UNOPS bankrolling the restoration work which would have taken place under an Italian architect. Although it had the support of the Cyprus government, the plan did not meet with the approval of a group of Greek Cypriot politicians who managed to block the project. New plans for supporting the structure were drawn up by the Patras University in Greece and it was announced that work would begin in the latter half of 2005, but a dispute over which side would administer the project led to its abandonment.
After the election of Demetris Christofias in 2008, the two sides decided to put their differences aside in order to save the monastery, which is part of the island’s cultural heritage. In June 2009 it was announced that work would commence in the next few weeks but, predictably, it did not, because the two sides could not agree who would administer the project.
When the UN proposed, a year later, that the project could be administered by Evkaf, the Turkish Cypriot religious organisation, Archbishop Chrysostomos would not hear of it as the monastery belonged to the Church. “I would rather see Apostolos Andreas collapse than accept that this monument belongs to Evkaf,” he said.
On Monday, the Archbishop called a news conference to warn that the monastery’s main arch had subsided and there was a danger this would cause the collapse of the main structure. The Turkish Cypriot authorities constantly obstructed the maintenance of the monastery, he said, but this time he was determined to send builders to fix the arch, even if they ran the risk of being arrested.
It was a cheap show of bravado by Chrsysostomos who knew very well that without co-operation from the Turkish Cypriots, the monastery would collapse. Was he prepared to allow such an important historic monument to become a pile of rubble, in order to score political points?
Thankfully, the issue has been taken out of the Archbishop’s hands. The technical committee dealing with cultural heritage and consisting of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot members will take charge of the project. It will use the Patras Univeristy restoration plans. We hope the petty disputes are put aside and work begins soon, because time is running out.
