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14 February - 14 February 2018

Lecture
“The Icon of the Resurrection of Christ: Reflections of the History of Cyprus”

 

 

The 1570-1571 war of Cyprus, by which the island had fallen under the authority of the Ottoman Empire, did not only reduce the megalonisos from a ‘kingdom’ to an Ottoman province; just like every war, it wreaked havoc and devastation upon the island. The land remained uncultivated and a large part of the population had perished – either slaughtered or captured and sold to the slave markets of the Orient. The atrocities of war, the trials and tribulations of the Cypriots that had managed to escape after a long captivity, reclaim their liberty and then seek refuge to Venice are recorded in a plethora of documents in the Venetian Archives, a considerable part of which remains unstudied to this day.

 

In the lecture hosted by the BOCCF on the 21st of February, in collaboration with “Politis” daily, historian-researcher Dr Nasa Patapiou draws on archival material to relay the fascinating story of a young woman that had been ravaged by that war.

 

An icon dated to the 16th c. depicts the entire history of Cyprus and the misfortunes brought about by the Ottoman conquest in 1570-1571. At the same time, archival research at the State Archives of Venice has brought to light unknown information about the female donor of the icon representing the Resurrection of Christ. A few months before the conquest of Nicosia, a young Cypriot noblewoman, aged only sixteen, daughter of a feudal lord, married a member of a then significant Cypriot family. Her husband, father and other relatives were lost in the war, as she and her two sisters were taken into captivity. She would live the next twenty years as a slave until, finally freed, she sought refuge to Venice. There, she fulfilled her tama, namely a solemn promise to God, dedicating to a monastery an icon of the Resurrection of Christ. 


Speaker: Dr Nasa Patapiou, Historian-Researcher

Wednesday, 21 February at 19:30
Andreas Patsalides Hall

For info: 22128157