The Next Chapter in the Story of the "Menil" Byzantine Frescoes

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The 13th century frescoes on the walls and vaulting of the church of Ayios Themomianos, a small votive chapel in Lysi, northern Cyprus were turned into "portable antiquities" (by cutting them into 38 pieces with a chainsaw before detaching them from their centuries-old place on the masonry) following the 1974 Turkish invasion. The frescoes depicting Christ Pantocrator surrounded by a frieze of angels and a panel from an apse representing the Madonna of the Sign flanked by Archangels Michael and Gabriel. They were being sold by a Turkish dealer based in Munich, Aydin Dikmen, working at the time with Michel van Rijn. They were offered to Dominique de Menil, founder of the Menil Collection, in 1983. After research revealed their true provenance, the frescoes were acquired by the Menil Collection on behalf of the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus. They were then restored at the cost of the Menil collection, and the Church lent the frescoes to the Menil on a long-term basis, for presentation in a consecrated chapel in Houston. The Byzantine Fresco Chapel opened to the public in 1997, with support for its construction provided by donors in Houston and across the country.

The original twenty year loan was extended for a further ten years, but now it is time for the frescoes to go back. Archbishop Chrysostomos II has turned down additional requests to keep the frescoes longer, "offering instead to dispatch an iconographer to recreate them on the chapel's dome and apses, along with a gift of 10 late-19th- and early-20th-century icons".
Cyprus Antiquities Department Director Maria Hadjicosti said officials will oversee the entire operation to transport the frescoes back to the island. Sadly the objects will not be restored to the church from which they were stolen, but a museum in Nicosia.

Menelaos Hadjicostis, 'Frescoes going home to Cyprus ', Associated press, October 1, 2011.

Museum Publicity, 'Menil Collection Returning Byzantine Frescoes to Cyprus', 1 October 2011

Vignette, The Menil Foundation.