CHRIST-ANTIPHONITIS CHURCH

Beautifully isolated, this ^12th-century Greek Orthodox church (Antiphonitis Kilisesi, Εκκλησία του Χριστού Αντιφωνητή/Ekklisia tou Christou Antifoniti) is renowned for its frescoes - most of which were vandalized after the 1974 invasion - and enjoys a superb setting. Situated in the middle of a forest at an altitude of 420 m, it overlooks the village of Agios Amvrosios and the coast. Dedicated to the "Christ who answers" (Christos Antiphonitis), it was part of a monastery founded in the ^7th century and dedicated to the Archangel Michael, whose other buildings have almost all disappeared. Covered by a vast dome supported by eight columns, it is the largest surviving Byzantine church in Cyprus. Note the strangely leaning dome, which was probably deformed during the great earthquake of 1220. The narthex (west) and arcade (south) were probably added in the ^15th century, when the building was briefly transformed into a Catholic place of worship by Isabelle Perez Fabrice, a member of the Lusignan family.

Looted and recovered frescoes. Most of the frescoes that survive here date from the late ^14th century. Some are well preserved, such as the two pillars of the dome, which depict Saint Paul and a rare representation of Saint Eudoxe, a ^2nd-century Armenian martyr. Others have been damaged by the effects of light: angels in the cupola under Christ Pantocrator, St. George in the narthex. Sadder still are the frescoes desecrated after the 1974 invasion. This is particularly the case at the top of the apse: on this ^12th-century work, the faces of the Mother of God and the archangels Michael and Gabriel have been hammered out. Some also bear "devotional graffiti" left by pilgrims in the ^19th and ^20th centuries, sometimes written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet (Arabic characters). Above all, the thirty most precious frescoes were removed from the walls between 1976 and 1979 by the great Turkish trafficker Aydın Dikmen (1937-2020): Mother of God and Fathers of the Church (apse wall), Tree of Jesse (south wall), Last Judgment (north wall), Saint John the Baptist (southwest pillar), etc. These works were produced around 1190 in a style similar to the ornamentation of the church of Panagia Arakiotissa in Lagoudera (Troodos massif). Recovered in 1997, they are now on display at the Byzantine Museum in Nicosia. But some icons are still untraceable, as are some 20,000 items of historical property in the Northern Zone that have disappeared since 1974.