The Aniconic Church: Restoration Saves Naxos’s 8th-Century Hagia Kyriaki

The conservation of the religion was a precedence for European practice experts. Credit: Elliniki Etaireia

The Hagia Kyriaki Byzantine Church connected the Greek land of Naxos is not lone 1 of the Cyclades’ oldest spiritual sites, dating backmost to the 8th century, but it is besides location to a bid of partition paintings truthful uncommon that their conservation became a important precedence for European practice experts.

A meticulous, collaborative restoration task has successfully saved the operation and its unsocial creation for aboriginal generations.

A Crucial Window into the Iconoclasm

The single-nave domed basilica, located successful a distant agrarian country adjacent the colony of Apeiranthos, holds immense humanities value owed to its remarkably well-preserved archetypal furniture of aniconic frescoes.

These murals day to the play of Iconoclasm (8th–9th period AD), a clip erstwhile the depiction of spiritual figures was banned successful the Byzantine Empire.

Aniconic frescoes dating to the play of Iconoclasm. Credit: Elliniki Etaireia

The resulting creation is highly antithetic and includes:

• Elaborate crosses
• Geometric and floral patterns
• Depictions of animals specified arsenic birds and cockerels
• Imitations of marble paneling (marmoratum)

Experts see this circumstantial ensemble of aniconic creation to beryllium the champion preserved successful the Cyclades, providing a crucial, uncommon model into aboriginal Byzantine thought. Some motifs adjacent amusement Sassanid (Persian) oregon Islamic influence, highlighting the taste cross-currents of the era.

Credit: Elliniki Etaireia

A exemplary of collaborative conservation

For years, the religion had fallen into terrible disrepair owed to neglect and extended h2o damage, threatening some the operation and the irreplaceable murals.

The collaborative task to prevention it was achieved done an exemplary concern betwixt Greek and Swiss organizations and was funded wholly by backstage donations.

The rigorous conservation work, which restored the operation portion meticulously stabilizing the frescoes, received the prestigious European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Award.

The Europa Nostra assemblage praised the effort, stating the restoration squad demonstrated a “meticulous effort to support its authenticity and refrained from adding elements that would disguise the passing of clip and history.”