CYPRUS AND THE CHAPEL OF ST. THEMANIANOS

An in-depth discussion of Cyprus and its partition during the twentieth century falls outside the scope of this article. Yet a few words describing the armed conflict, invasion, and history of protection of cultural objects there will inform the discussion which follows. Cyprus is an island nation resting in the Eastern Mediterranean. Owing to its position as a maritime crossroads, a number of cultures and ethnic groups have moved through and settled there, leaving behind an impressive array of material cultural heritage. Cyprus was an important part of the Byzantine empire from 395 – 1191 A.D.; during this time and after a number of churches were built and were elaborately decorated with frescoes and mosaics. In 1571 the island became a part of the Ottoman Empire, lasting until 1878 when the Ottomans relinquished control over Cyprus, and the island became an English colony. In 1950 the Cypriot Church organized a popular vote to determine the future of the island, with one option to unite with Greece. In 1960, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Greece all agreed to safeguard and respect the independence of Cyprus, which created the Republic of Cyprus and marks the date of independence for the Republic.^{Footnote 5}

There are two main groups in Cyprus: the minority Turkish-Cypriots and the majority Greek-Cypriots.^{Footnote 6} At present, Turkey controls the northern portion of the island, while the Republic of Cyprus controls the southern area. There is a United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus which was established in 1964 after internal violence occurred in 1963. This force patrols a “green line” which divides the Northern third of the island from the South. The peacekeeping force became necessary when the Greek military, assisted by Cypriot forces, executed a coup d’état against the first elected President of Cyprus, Archbishop Makarios. In response, on July 20, 1974 Turkey invaded the northern part of the island on the grounds that they needed to protect the minority Turkish-Cypriot community. As a result of this invasion then, 200,000 Greek-Cypriots were forced to leave their home in the Northern part of the island. In 1983 a Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TNRC) was unilaterally declared, though the United Nations in 1983 and 1984 twice refused to recognize the government.^{Footnote 7} With this invasion, subsequent arrangements transferred Greek populations to the south of the island, and the Turkish and Muslim populations were relocated to the north. This meant that a number of churches in the north, and mosques in the south were abandoned and were left vulnerable.^{Footnote 8} In 2001 the European Court of Human Rights found Turkey responsible for 14 violations of the European Convention of Human Rights and its Protocols. The main violations related to the disappearance of 1,485 Greek Cypriots, and the treatment of Greek Cypriots living in occupied areas of the island.^{Footnote 9} In May of 2014 the European Court of Human Rights ordered Turkey to pay 90 million Euros in total to Cyprus and to the relatives of the missing.^{Footnote 10}

The system of cultural heritage protection evolved along with the shifting control of the island. During Ottoman control of Cyprus, there had been a system of protection of cultural sites from the eighteenth century. Excavations of material had been licensed since the nineteenth century.^{Footnote 11} While a British colony, Cyprus had comprehensive legislation protecting sites and works of art. Despite this, “pillaging of historic sites and unlicensed excavation of archaeological sites persisted” even before the Turkish invasion in 1974.^{Footnote 12} After the invasion, the looting became more prevalent, particularly in the Northern Turkish-controlled areas of the island, especially as communities were displaced during the Turkish invasion. One of the first prominent objects from Cyprus which surfaced after the invasion was the series of frescoes from the Church of Themanianos in Lysi which were acquired by the Menil.

During the Turkish military invasion and the many years of occupation, a number of important archaeological and religious sites have sustained theft and looting.^{Footnote 13} The destruction of archaeological and religious sites is a devastating loss to any nation. Given the political and military unrest in Cyprus, and the ongoing division of the island, the looting of sites and transfer of illicit material abroad further damages the social and cultural fabric of Cyprus. A report prepared by UNESCO in 1984 noted that:

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Cyprus estimates that more than 550 Greek Orthodox churches and religious buildings have been pillaged or destroyed. Churches have been converted to mosques, storehouses, and even barns. The Cypriot Police estimate that since the 1974 invasion as many as 60,000 cultural objects have been illegally removed and sent abroad.^{Footnote 14} It was in this context that a series of murals were removed from a small chapel dedicated to St. Themanianos in the Northern, Turkish-occupied part of the island.

ACQUISITION, PRESERVATION, AND DISPLAY OF THE FRESCOES

In 1983, the Menil was presented with an opportunity to purchase a series of thirteenth century Byzantine mural fragments. These fragments had been stripped from the Church of Themanianos near Lysi. When the objects were offered to the Menil, the true origin of the murals was not given. The seller was a Turkish art dealer based in Munich named Aydin Dikmen.^{Footnote 15} Dikmen organized a team of looters who systematically robbed churches of their gospels, icons, and other artifacts. He has been estimated to be the “most active and influential international operator” in Northern Cyprus during the Turkish occupation.^{Footnote 16} In 1988 it was Dikmen, working with Michel van Rijn, who sold sixth-century mosaics looted from a separate Church in Cyprus to Peg Goldberg, which resulted in the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus successfully filing suit in Federal Court in Indiana to secure the return of the mosaics to Cyprus.^{Footnote 17} Van Rijn, a former dealer in stolen art who in the past has worked with law enforcement, described the methods used by Dikmen and his associates. They would allegedly “cover the delicate frescoes with gauze and plaster which would be backed with stiff material, cut them into sections, removing them from the walls of the chapel. Each section would then lie on a bed of cotton in a shallow box, like a slice of dried salt fish in a souk.”^{Footnote 18} Dikmen employed a number of looters, including agents who would pick up the looted pieces and scout sites, men who carried the looting materials needed to strip frescoes and mosaics, and a retired policeman who served as a lookout.

Dikmen oversaw the smuggling from Cyprus to the Turkish mainland, and the objects were then taken to Munich, where they were stored in apartments. Dikmen’s efforts to craft histories for his objects relied on fabricated stories of “rescuing” objects from churches and buildings which were about to be destroyed or bulldozed. He would prepare the stolen artifacts for eventual sale by removing any identifiable marks from icons. According to an interview by historian Michael Jansen of van Rijn, Dikmen “did a certain amount of restoration on large icons which had been sawn into two or four pieces for shipment. To disguise well-known icons, he occasionally converted them into holy doors by fixing them to elaborately carved wooden frames.”^{Footnote 19} The chief conservator in charge of restoring the murals for the Menil, Laurence J. Morrocco, was able to visit the small Church at Lysi late in the conservation process. He offers an account of the damage done to these churches:

But again, none of this context was readily apparent to the Menil when the frescoes were offered for sale.

In 1983 Bertrand Davezac, the first director of the Menil, was approached with an offer to purchase the fresco fragments.^{Footnote 21} He met with a dealer named Yiannis Petsopoulos. Petsopoulos met with Davezac in England and showed him black and white photos of the fresco fragments, including one of a dome which depicted Christ the pantokrator. Then a subsequent meeting was arranged with Dominique de Menil and others from the Menil in Munich. Officials from the Menil, Dominique de Menil, and Petsopoulos and Dikmen, all met at a run-down Munich apartment and saw fragments of the frescoes lit only by candlelight, owing apparently to the fact that power had not been turned on at the apartment. These frescoes had been carved up into many small sections.^{Footnote 22}

Remarking later Dominique de Menil described their condition during this meeting in Munich: “The pieces were too much chopped up to derive any impression of beauty,” comparing them to “a miserable human being that has to be brought to the hospital.”^{Footnote 23} Dikmen told them a contractor in southern Anatolia came across the derelict church and found these murals buried under rubble. He also had freehand drawings of a church and a forged Turkish export permit. At the conclusion of the meeting, Dominique de Menil agreed to pay Dikmen a small sum to secure the right to acquire the frescoes at some point in the future.

Many have called for an increase in the level of diligence required of purchasers of works of art and antiquities.^{Footnote 24} The standard set by the Menil with respect to these frescoes offers a useful paradigm for a robust and diligent investigation when cultural material is presented for sale. Rather than do a cursory investigation into the history of the objects, Dominique de Menil hired a former U.S. Attorney General who served under President Eisenhower, Herbert Brownell, to negotiate the acquisition of the frescoes.^{Footnote 25} Brownell was initially dissatisfied with the history of the objects. He recalled telling Dominique de Menil that acquiring the frescoes would pose a risk due to “the uncertain state of the law applying to the purchase of art from a dealer who could not establish a credible provenance for the art.” He also stressed the importance of the “UNESCO convention setting rules for recovery by a nation,” which “set forth certain modern standards for countries of origin to recover physically their national treasures when they were found in another country.”^{Footnote 26} He sent a letter and photographs of the murals to nine countries which had been part of the Byzantine Empire. The letter laid out the case for acquisition: “While our clients have no reason to believe that there is any impediment to the purchase of these paintings, given their present location in Western Europe, they feel that the importance and quality of the material is such that it would be appropriate and correct to approach the relevant authorities in all the countries that might be concerned, in order that any possible claims to these paintings could come to light.”^{Footnote 27} Turkey, Lebanon and Cyprus all responded, claiming the frescoes. But only Cyprus provided documentary evidence of the location of the St. Themanianos Church, in Lysi.

Dominique de Menil now knew that the frescoes had been stolen from the Church of St. Themanianos near Lysi, and that the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus was the rightful owner. Faced with a difficult decision over whether to approach law enforcement officials in Munich, Cyprus, or the United States, Dominique de Menil decided that the risk to these frescoes was too great, and that Dikmen would either sell the pieces immediately, or even destroy them if he feared an arrest was imminent. Cyprus’ ambassador to the United States, Andreas Jacovides recalls the difficult time: “We faced the difficult decision of whether to say, ‘Wait, it’s stolen property’—in which case we would run the risk of having the frescoes go underground—or making some kind of arrangement . . . It was felt at the time that it would be better, for the sake of preserving the frescoes, to have the arrangement.”^{Footnote 28} She decided to pay the head of this looting network, Dikmen, knowing perhaps that he would continue looting and pillaging other sites and rural churches in Cyprus and Turkey. The purchase price was near $520,000 for the murals.^{Footnote 29}

Yet before the purchase, Dominique de Menil negotiated with the Department of Antiquities of Cyprus and the original owner of the fresco fragments, the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus. She gained their assent before moving forward with any purchase. The murals were transferred from Munich to London in January of 1984, with a series of negotiations between the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus and the Menil culminating in 1987 with an agreement that allowed the Menil to act as custodians of the frescoes for an initial period of fifteen years, and in exchange the Menil would conserve the murals, and display them on the Menil campus in Houston.^{Footnote 30} This negotiation bears many similarities to other efforts made to safeguard cultural material under threat. In particular, the “Guidelines for the Establishment and Conduct of Safe Havens for Cultural Material” adopted by the International Law Association.^{Footnote 31} The Guidelines provide a model for creating a safe haven for cultural objects rescued from armed conflict and other threats. Article 4 of the Guidelines require the return of cultural objects when the “established owner or other established source of the material so requests, provided that the safe haven is satisfied with the conditions for safekeeping and preserving the material by the requesting state or entity.” There have been other examples of stewardship of objects at risk as well. Objects from the National Museum of Afghanistan were housed in a museum-in-exile in Switzerland from 1999 until 2007 during unrest in Afghanistan. The Museum-in-Exile in Bubendorf, Switzerland housed the objects and received as many as 50,000 visitors while it was open.^{Footnote 32} The example set by the Menil though stands apart, as the construction of a purpose-built chapel, and considerable expense to restore the frescoes meant not only that the frescoes were given safe haven, but that they were restored back to exceptional condition, and displayed in Houston where they were able to act as cultural ambassadors showcasing the impressive history of Cyprus.

Before these murals could be displayed though, a considerable amount of restoration work was required. The murals had been separated into 38 pieces. The conservator in charge, Laurence J. Morrocco, was forced to put the 26 pieces of the dome back together without the benefit of seeing the original chapel for most of the restoration process, given its position in the Turkish occupied part of the island. Michel van Rijn has claimed that Dikmen ironically was used as an adviser for the new chapel, so as to provide the original layout of the church in Lysi where the frescos were stripped. Morrocco describes the state of the fragments when he first examined them in London in 1984, “to my horror, I realized that the original curvature had been lost. We had no measurements except or the dubious ones supplied by the smugglers, and I now realized that we had not even an idea of the original curvature of the parts.”^{Footnote 33} The fragments had been covered with cloth facings which had been crudely glued on in an attempt to protect the layers of paint while the frescoes were being transported. The conservation techniques used by Morocco and his team in London were groundbreaking, and were, ultimately, able to undo the damage. But the considerable time, expense, and new techniques were all steps that the Menil was able to contribute to the project, expending an estimated $500,000 during the entire restoration process.^{Footnote 34} This sum was given despite the knowledge that these frescoes would only be temporarily a part of the Menil collection in Houston. They would, per the agreement with the Autocephalous Church, be returning to Cyprus at some future date.

The frescoes were on public display in Houston for fifteen years, which echoes the initial loan term agreed to by the Menil and the Church of Cyprus. To house them a $3 million dollar Byzantine Chapel Museum was specially designed and constructed. Writing a review soon after the Chapel opened, architecture critic Paul Goldberger noted: “the attitude this building represents can only be called refreshing, for here is true authenticity, both of this time and of the past.”^{Footnote 35} The Byzantine Chapel Museum was constructed a few hundred yards from the Rothko Chapel. The outside of the building is composed of rough stone walls, a small pool introduces visitors to the chapel. Inside the darkened inner room was a frosted glass outline of the original church in Lysi, where the frescoes were displayed in an architectural setting which mirrored the original context, and also were able to showcase the beauty of the frescoes, and the impressive conservation done to them. This was surely a stark contrast to the initial viewing experience Dominique de Menil and the other representatives of the Menil would have had when they first encountered the fragments in a dingy Munich apartment in 1983.

PURCHASING ILLICIT ART WITH THE OWNER’S PERMISSION

With so many other institutions in the United States returning works of art to nations of origin, the Menil worked with the original owner, the Church of Cyprus, to restore the frescoes, display them, and ultimately return them. When confronted with looted art, Dominique de Menil and the Menil administration made the decision to preserve these works with the permission of the original owner. The temporary nature of this arrangement between the Church and the Menil offers a different way of viewing material cultural heritage. Rather than a permanent aspect of the collection, the Menil made the decision to conserve the objects knowing they would remain at the Houston campus for a limited period of time. This acquisition differed from the permanent ownership paradigm that many other art-acquiring museums were pursuing during the 1980s. The frescoes were displayed for fifteen years in Houston, and were a unique and much appreciated part of the collection at the Menil. In 2012 the frescoes were returned to Cyprus. They are now, at the time of writing, on display at the Byzantine Museum in Nicosia. The Byzantine Chapel Museum now has only a simple sign referencing the end of the loan agreement to reflect the time that the Menil held them, and currently houses year-long art installations.^{Footnote 36}

Both the Autocephalous Church of Cyprus and the Menil should be congratulated for the result in this case. The Menil recognized the ownership interest of the Church, restoring these works at a great expense, knowing they would be returned to Cyprus eventually. The small chapel, still called the “Byzantine Fresco Chapel,” which was built to house the frescoes stands as a reminder of the historic agreement which has resulted in the true rescue of a series of at-risk objects. But rather than insist on permanent possession of these objects. The Menil offered a model for how museums and source communities can relate to one another. This relationship demonstrates the tremendous benefits which can accrue when actors at both ends of the art market work in harmony. It is remarkable that in a time when so many other institutions were asking so little when confronted with unprovenanced art that Brownell and Dominique de Menil thoroughly vetted the history of the frescoes, and were able to discern their original location and owner. Their due diligence was far more aggressive and targeted than was the norm, particularly in 1983—a time when a number of other art-acquiring museums were eagerly acquiring other objects with limited history.

But we should also leaven at least some of this praise, as the Menil was not so rigorous in all of its acquisitions. One connection to the illicit antiquities trade has been made to date. In 1993 a mosaic was uncovered in Southern Turkey which had been partially looted. Some of the fragments had been acquired by the Menil and they were ultimately returned to Turkey. The mosaics originated from the Zeugma region of Turkey. Two Roman cities, Seleucia and Apamea were the home to a number of ancient ruins and well-preserved Roman mosaics owing to the crossing of a narrowing of the Euphrates where the Silk Road crossed from Mesopotamia into Anatolia. The sites there have been looted and ransacked since the nineteenth century.^{Footnote 37} Development projects in the region, which include the construction of hydroelectric dams, have prompted both rapid looting of sites, and also resulted in emergency archaeological studies to find and remove any important remains before inundation. In 1993 archaeologists discovered a mosaic floor which had been partly looted. This led to a link, made by Sheila Campbell, between the recently-studied sections and two mosaic sections in the Menil Collection. These mosaics were returned to Turkey and are now on display at the Gaziantep museum in Turkey.^{Footnote 38} So though the Menil certainly set a new standard with respect to the Lysi frescoes, it was not able to maintain the same diligent acquisition practice for its entire collection. And we can certainly criticize the Menil for not exercising consistent and rigorous investigations into the histories of unprovenanced objects, just as other institutions in North America which were growing their collections of antiquities at this time should be criticized. Whether it was the unsavory nature of Dikmen and his sale of the frescoes to the Menil which raised their suspicions or the deep devotion to her religious faith that caused Dominique de Menil to take such a courageous decision remains unknown.

There are other antiquities collections at the Menil. The collection includes the kind of material often associated with the illicit antiquities trade from the 1980s, including Cycladic figurines^{Footnote 39} and red-figure vases.^{Footnote 40} The author is unaware of any direct illicit connection or illegal activity involving these objects in the Menil’s collection. Yet owing to the objectives of the Menil, to let the objects tell their own story, these other objects were displayed in a radically different way than the Byzantine frescoes from St. Themanianos. One of the core goals of the Menil is to present art in its pure form, wiping away any distracting didactic material or explanatory text. The viewer is encouraged to make their own connection with the works of art on display. But this approach was modified when it came to the way the Menil displayed the frescoes. When the author visited the frescoes at the Byzantine chapel there was a great deal of context for the objects. The frosted glass mimicked the original architecture of the church in Lysi; there were books and photographs in the entryway which told the history of the acquisition; and the whole experience as a visitor told the story of the damage done to Northern Cyprus and how the Menil rescued these objects from the antiquities market.

It must be acknowledged as well that Dikmen was paid for stealing the frescoes. His looting network supplied the Menil with the material and the network was paid for the looting of the church. He operated freely as a result of the peculiar circumstances surrounding Northern Cyprus, which saw the Turkish military take insufficient steps to safeguard the heritage there, and the fact that the local population was removed from the site. There was no possibility of any local outrage as the church-goers who may have lived in Lysi were no longer there. In 1998 after a lengthy sting operation, Munich police were able to recover a number of looted Cypriot artworks in Dikmen’s Munich apartment. These were eventually returned to Cyprus. Though the objects were returned, Dikmen was not convicted of any serious crimes because Michel van Rijn refused to testify at trial, though he had cooperated with police during the investigation, on the grounds that he was receiving death threats. So Dikmen and his looting network were ultimately apprehended and targeted by German police. Whether they would have been stopped from looting more sites had Dominique de Menil gone to authorities is an open question.^{Footnote 41} The Menil bought illicit material, and Dikmen’s looting network profited.