500-year-old icon looted from divided Cyprus repatriated

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — A 500-year-old Orthodox icon that was looted from a church in the breakaway north of ethnically divided Cyprus has been returned to the island. The icon of the Enthroned Christ was presented at a ceremony Tuesday to the head of the island’s Orthodox Church. Cyprus’ Antiquities Department dates to around the end of the 15th century to the early 16th century. The icon belongs to the 12th-century Christ Antiphonitis Church, near the northern coastal town of Kyrenia. It was one of countless icons, frescoes, mosaics and religious artifacts stolen from churches in the north that were abandoned when the island was split in 1974 between primarily Orthodox Greek Cypriots and Muslim Turkish Cypriots.