Dutch to Return Stolen Icons to Cyprus

The Dutch government seized four icons looted from a monastery in northern Cyprus and will hand them to Cypriot authorities, according to Walk of Truth, an organization that campaigns to preserve cultural heritage. The 16th-century icons portraying the four apostles, valued at about $200,000, were taken from the medieval Antiphonitis monastery in 1975. Legal efforts by the Church of Cyprus to recover the icons failed in 2002 after seven years. A change in Dutch law in 2007 allowed the government to seize the artworks, said Tasoula Hadjitofi, the founder of Walk of Truth. ?We have heard that the icons will be delivered to Cypriot authorities ? Hadjitofi told delegates at a Sept. 16 conference in The Hague. ?The Netherlands should be congratulated for this.The Cypriot government says that as many as 100 Greek Orthodox and Armenian churches in northern Cyprus were looted or vandalized after the 1974 Turkish invasion. It estimates that more than 15,000 icons are missing. Some objects have been recovered in western Europe and the U.S. The four looted icons of the saints were purchased by an elderly Dutch couple from an Armenian dealer who visited their Rotterdam home.

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