Works completed on Gazimağusa churches
CONSERVATION of mediaeval churches in Gazimağusa’s Walled City was celebrated with live music by Greek and Turkish Cypriot and Armenian performers.
EU-funded works were completed on the churches of St Mary of the Armenians (Virgin Mary of Ganchvor) and St Mary of the Carmelites this year under the United Nations Development Programme and Bicommunal Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage.
Speaking at an unveiling last Saturday, Turkish Cypriot representative on the 2008-founded committee Ali Tuncay said: “Cultural heritage and different cultures need not be factors for conflict but, rather, for cooperation, peace and prosperity. It has not always been easy, but our cooperation on conservation has built up respect, equality and trust.
“Our work continues on St Anne’s Maronite Church, the Tabakhane, or Tanners’, Mosque and the Ravelin [Gate], as well as the Ottoman Baths in Paphos and Karpaz sites Ayios Philon and Afendrika.”
His Greek Cypriot colleague, Takis Hadjidemetriou, described the small Armenian church and its handover as “a monument of pain and love and combination of peoples and culture at the edge of the eastern Mediterranean”, adding: “Deep is our faith, despite all that happened, that nothing is lost in history and culture.”
Armenian Church representative Vartkes Mahdessian thanked the committee for their efforts.
UNDP programme manager in Cyprus Tiziana Zennaro said the current European Year of Cultural Heritage was also an important period for the town due to conservation projects worth four million euros.
She added that it had taken leadership and vision of the “common good” to embrace Armenians, Maronites and Latins as integral to the identity of Cyprus, which she described as “a unique blend of cultures with a shared past and a common future”.
The European Union had helped facilitate conservation work on 60 heritage sites islandwide and had contributed almost 15 million euros since 2012 for preservation and “a vibrant multicultural future”.
The Armenian and Maronite churches featured in Cyprus Today last summer following the conservation and protection efforts of Dr Michael Walsh, formerly of Eastern Mediterranean University, and his 2017 book, PrayersLongSil ent, and film with British film-maker Dan Frodsham.
Dan Frodsham’s films Against theClock, TheForty: Savingthe Forgotten Frescoes of Fa ma gusta and Prayers Long Silent may all be viewed on the World Monuments Fund YouTube channel.