To the left: "The paramount significance of their [the Kanakaria mosaics'] existence," said Judge Noland in the Federal Court in Indianapolis, "is as part of the religious, artistic and cultural heritage of the Church and the Government of Cyprus, and as part of the national unity of the Republic of Cyprus."
On the eastern tip of the Karpass (Karpasia map 193K) peninsula of the island of Cyprus (map 18K, location diagram 57K), lies a small village, Lythrangomi (Lythragkomi). The church of Panayia Kanakaria (dedicated to Virgin Mary) at Lythrangomi, suffered from one of the worst examples of looting as a result of war.
Before 1974, when Turkey invaded Cyprus, the Kanakaria church mosaics were regarded as being among the most important and some of the very few surviving examples of early Christian art.
Early in 1989, however, four Kanakaria mosaics - depicting the child Christ, an archangel and the Apostles James and Matthew - appeared in the U.S., where they were offered by an art dealer to the Getty Museum for $20,000,000.
The Cyprus Government and Greek Orthodox Church immediately sued the US dealer, who, in front of a US District Court, claimed to have bought the mosaics from a Turkish art dealer. The action of the Government and the Church, supported by a petition of 2,000 prominent US academics and cultural figures, was vindicated when the Court ruled that the mosaics should be returned to the rightful owners.
p. 49
... "During and after the invasion, the cultural property of both communities suffered considerable damage, but the Greeks were especially grieved by their losses. They had a lot more to lose - the island's Greek treasures by far outnumbered its Turkish ones - and they had also been forced to give up large tracts of territory inhabited mostly by Greeks. The looting of Orthodox Christian precincts was particularly widespread - irreparable damage was done to important Byzantine monuments, such as the Antiphonitis Monastery and the Church of St. Themonianos, near Lysi - which suggested to the Greeks that the Turks were pursuing a policy of anti-Hellenic vandalism.
This theory has been disputed by some outside observers, who note the Turks' relative impoverishment and their eagerness to build a tourist industry oriented toward countries whose populations profess Christianity; yet the destruction of churches and the theft or defacement of icons was a painful reality all the same.
In some cases, Turkish troops from the mainland probably indulged in opportunistic pillage; in others, soldiers or local ruffians casually vandalized any symbol of the hated enemy. More ominously, signs appeared that sophisticated international smuggling rings were operating with near-impunity; Turkish journalists reported instances in which such rings had bribed minor officials. U.N. soldiers regularly crossed the Green Line, and a few of them seem to have been corrupted with remarkable ease; some female couriers are thought to have availed themselves of the traditional Turkish reluctance to search women. Because no country but Turkey extended diplomatic recognition to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, outside funding for the protection of the antiquities there was not available. Hundreds of important icons, in fresco, mosaic or paint on panel, vanished from the island, and their disappearance opened a terrible wound in the Greek Cypriot soul.
p. 50
... The Kanakaria mosaics are not only votive objects, however. They are also a prime part of the heritage of modern Cyprus, a tiny nation born in 1960. The icons of Cyprus were being catalogued for the first time when the Turkish troops invaded in 1974. The treasures of Cypriot craftsmanship are seen as the islanders' invaluable patrimony, part of what spiritually defines them, and the loss of any major Cypriot work of art is experienced as deeply painful. The spirit of a people, even a very small people, is inevitably furnished with memories of material things - of mountains and rivers and cities and shrines - and the appearance of an unmistakably Cypriot angel on the shoulder of some lady in Indianapolis was not something that either the Church or the Republic of Cyprus could tolerate. Cyprus Filed suit for a recovery action in Federal Court in Indianapolis on March 29, 1989.
p. 57
... On August 3, 1989, Judge Noland handed down his decision and order: That the pieces belonged to the Church of Cyprus, and should be delivered into the custody of that institution."
... Repeated appeals by the dealer (Peg Goldberg) were denied. The decision was finalized when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case.
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