Religious Icons (Aghia Kioura, Leros)
Category: Visual Arts > Public space
| Artist: | Antonis Karagiannis | Takis Tzaneteas | Kyriakos Tsakiris |
|---|---|
| Year: | 1967-1969 |
| Genre: | Iconography |
| Location: | Monastery of Aghia Matrona or Kioura |
| Place: | Partheni | Leros |
Censorship incidents
| 1974–1979 | Destruction of religious icons painted by Antonis Karagiannis, Takis Tzaneteas and Kyriakos Tsakiris at Aghia Kioura of Leros
|
Description
The small church of Aghia Matrona-Kioura is located at Partheni, on the island of Lesvos, just a kilometer away from the infamous exile camp that “hosted” hundreds of political prisoners during the Colonels’ Dictatorship (1967-1974). In 1967, the prisoners decorated the church with icons, using a style which was far off from Byzantine iconography. During the Metapolitefsi, the monastery’s abbot covered the icons with plaster and lime, destroying them in the process. A few years later, the issue was raised by the Swiss Archaeological School, and the abbot argued that the icons were worthless because they were “non Byzantine-style […] works of communists”. In 1982, the Ministry of Culture declared the church a historical monument and the icons were gradually restored.
Sources – Bibliography
- Anti, issue 140, 07/12/1979.
- To Vima, 13/10/1981.
- Rizospastis, 23/08/2000.
- Penelope Petsini, «Agia Kiura» in P. Petsini and D. Christopoulos (eds.) Dictionary of Censorship in Greece: Cachectic democracy - dictatorship - metapolitefsi, Athens: Kastaniotis 2018.
