Conservation work underway at Syngrasi church

Conservation work on the Ayios Prokopios church in the village of Syngrasi, near Trikomo, is underway, technical committee on cultural heritage co-chairman Sotos Ktoris said.

He said the committee’s advisory body had made a visit to the village and the church on Wednesday to inspect the site, which was built on the ruins of an early Christian basilica in the sixth century.

Parts of that basilica, including its marble floor, survive to this day, and were incorporated into the church’s modern design during the most recent round of renovations at it, which were carried out in the 1950s.

The modern structure is believed to date from the 11th or 12th century, with experts pointing to the irregular cylindrical dome and its apse as evidence of the period in which it was built.

Syngrasi had been a mixed village until 1964, when, following the outbreak of intercommunal conflict on the island, much of its Turkish Cypriot population fled to nearby villages, including Ayios Iacovos, and to the town of Famagusta itself.

A small amount of the village’s Turkish Cypriot inhabitants then returned in 1968, with the majority of the remainder of those Turkish Cypriots then returning in 1974, and being joined by a small number of families from Turkey’s Samsun province in 1976.

The village’s Greek Cypriot population, meanwhile, was displaced in August 1974.