CHURCH OF PANAGIA OF ASKIAS

This small, single-aisled and vaulted church is located isolated in the middle of the plain of Mesaoria, next to the cemetery of occupied Assia. Its location coincides with the original site of the village, before the residents moved further south in order to protect themselves from the catastrophic overflows of the river Gialias. The building is a unique geological and historical landmark, as the continuous floods of past centuries have deposited enormous volumes of mud around it, with the result that the church today appears half-sunk into the ground. After the Turkish invasion of 1974, the church was savagely desecrated and its rare medieval wall paintings were stolen by antiquities smugglers, although some of them were later traced abroad and repatriated.