Artist: Georgios Dimitriadis
Location: Panayia Phaneromeni Church, Nicosia. Nicosia district
Material: Marble
Category: Cypriot Church, Union (énosis), Public sculpture before 1960
Photography: Evangelia Matthopoulou
The memorial was constructed to commemorate a hundred years since the foundation of the Modern Greek State.
Archbishop Kyprianos and three more Bishops were hanged on July 9th 1821 in Nicosia with the accusation that Cypriots disobeyed the direct order of the Turkish Sultan to stay neutral from the Greek War of Independence.
The initiative for the memorial was taken by the Holy Synod of the Church of Cyprus, the Kykkos Monastery, and the Panayia Phaneromeni Church. The unveiling took place on July 9th 1930. The remains of Archbishop Kyprianos and the Bishops are kept in the mausoleum.
Georgios Dimitriadis the Athenian (1880-1941) was one of the most renowned Greek sculptors following the academic style in the beginning of the 20th century. The mausoleum brings together all the symbols of Byzantine art and the aesthetic characteristics of ancient Greek. The head covering with a cloth symbolizes the mourning and its abstract conception here turns it into an ideogram of loss.
Selected sources:
~ Αλήθεια (Alithia), July, 10, 1930, p. 1.
~ Έθνος (Ethnos), May 29, 1930, p. 1.
~ Έθνος (Ethnos), June 28, 1930, p. 1.
~ Έθνος (Ethnos), July 12, 1930, p. 4.
~ Παρατηρητής (Paratiritis), June 1, 1929, p. 4.
~ Φωνή της Κύπρου (Foni tis Kyprou), April 26, 1930, p. 1.
~ Φωνή της Κύπρου (Foni tis Kyprou), July 5, 1930, p. 1.
~ Φωνή της Κύπρου (Foni tis Kyprou), July 12, 1930, p. 2.
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