Cyprus Today: The State of Historic Monuments in the Occupied Areas

This year is the commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Turkish Invasion in Cyprus (1974-2024). An important aspect of its repercussions is the destruction of cultural heritage by the looting of ancient sites, religious monuments, museums, and private collections in the occupied areas. As it is common in similar circumstances, thousands of antiquities, icons, detached murals, and artifacts were exported and illegally sold outside Cyprus. In the last fifty years civil and ecclesiastical authorities of the Republic of Cyprus and cultural foundations in the Diaspora, notably the A. G. Leventis Foundation, have coordinated efforts towards the repatriation, preservation and restoration of a very large number of these treasures. The Republic of Cyprus holds the first place for the repatriation of misappropriated cultural heritage internationally with the assistance of several foreign governments, including those of Australia, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, and USA. In this context, Dr Charalampos Chotzakoglou presents an illustrated talk on the current state of religious monuments belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus, the Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the Holy Monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, the Roman Catholic, Protestant, Anglican, Maronite and Armenian Churches, the Jewish community and the Alevis in the occupied areas of Cyprus, Chotzakoglou discusses the progress of repatriation and restoration of Cypriot historic monuments as well as the study of returned artifacts and the role of the Cypriot Diaspora in identifying and preserving the misappropriated cultural heritage of Cyprus. 

Co-organised by The Hellenic Centre, The Hellenic Institute and the Centre for Greek Diaspora Studies of Royal Holloway, University of London with the support of the Ministry of Education, Sport and Youth of the Republic of Cyprus 

Charalampos G. Chotzakoglou
Born and educated in Piraeus, Greece, Charalampos G. Chotzakoglou studied History, Archaeology and History of Art at the University of Athens (1988-1992) before he pursued higher studies at the University of Tübingen in Germany (1992-3). As Scholar of the Onassis Foundation and the Austrian Ministry of Sciences he completed his doctoral thesis on Byzantine art and architecture at the University of Vienna (1993-1998). He has taken part in research projects of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, the National Hellenic Research Foundation, the Hungarian Eötvös Lorand University, and the European Institute of Budapest. He has served as Visiting Professor in Byzantine Architecture and Medieval History of Art at graduate level at the University of Cyprus and at post-graduate level at the University of Cyprus, Neapolis University and University of Nicosia. He is currently teaching Byzantine Architecture and Art at the Hellenic Open University in Athens.

Dr Chotzakoglou has participated in many symposia and international conferences in Europe, Africa, and USA. He has published monographs and articles in scholarly volumes and academic journals on a range of subjects in Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art. Under the auspices of the Kykkos Monastery, he was the first to proceed with a systematic documentation of the destruction of religious monuments in the Turkish-occupied northern part of Cyprus. His first findings were announced at The Hellenic Centre Lecture Series on Cypriot History and Culture co-organised with the Hellenic Institute, Royal Holloway, University of London in Autumn 2003. His subsequent complete study (The religious monuments in the Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus, Lefkosia, Forum of Religions and Cultures 2008) was well received by the academic community and was presented to the Plenary Session of the Academy of Athens. It has already been translated into five languages. In May 2012, Dr Chotzakoglou was conferred the medal of Prince Constantin Ostrogsky by the Polish Orthodox Church for his services towards the internationalization of the issue of the destruction of religious monuments, while he has been invited by the European Parliament and the US Congress to present his findings.

Since 2010, he is the Director of the Cultural Foundation, World Forum of Religions and Cultures of the Kykkos Monastery. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of the Society of Cypriot Studies, Chairman of the Cypriot Commission for Byzantine Studies, and Secretary of the Society of the Minor-Asia Cypriots. He is Radio producer of the RIK programme “Εὔξεινος Κύπρος”.