Fri 17 September 2021:
After a long legal fight, two ornately adorned 18th-century doors stolen from a Cypriot church decades ago have finally arrived on the split island from Japan.
On Thursday, the Orthodox Church of Cyprus legally took over the doors of the church of Saint Anastasios in Peristeronopigi village.
The church, which was built in 1775, lies over a cave that houses the saint’s burial. After the Turkish invasion of 1974, the carved and gilded wooden doors, which were painted with religious motifs, were stolen.
They later reappeared at Ishikawa, Japan’s Kanazawa Art College. No information on how the college got them has been made public.
Communications and Works Minister Yiannis Karousos said the doors’ return to Cyprus had been the result of “long and intensive efforts”.
Hundreds of frescoes, mosaics, and other holy works of art were taken from churches in the north of the island during the invasion, where Turkish Cypriots declared independence.
The Cypriot government and church officials have battled long legal fights in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere to reclaim various treasures for the better part of 50 years.
Karousos said the doors’ repatriation sent the message to antiquities smugglers and “the international ring of crooks” that “however many years go by, [Cyprus] will hunt them down, because cultural genocide cannot be tolerated anywhere in the world.”
