CHURCH OF SAINT EFFIMIANOU

This small Byzantine chapel is located in the rural area of the occupied village of Lysi and is dedicated to Saint Euphemianos. The church became known worldwide owing to its savage looting after 1974, when antiquities smugglers removed its priceless medieval wall paintings from the dome and the apse in order to sell them abroad. Although the stolen masterpieces were eventually repatriated to the Byzantine Art Museum in Nicosia, the monument itself remains silent and inactive in the occupied zone