The Church of Saint Charalambos was designed and built by self-taught architects in the late 19th century in the village of Kontea (or Kondea) on the eastern Mediterranean island country of Cyprus. For nearly a century, it served as a center of religious and community life. Now it is accessed by Greek Orthodox worshippers, tentatively, one day each year on the saint’s celebration day, February 10.
Cyprus, a presidential republic and member of the European Union, gained independence from British control in 1960. For the past 50 years, it has been ethnically split: Turkish Cypriots to the north, Greek Cypriots to the south. This de facto division was cemented by the crisis of 1974 and Turkish military intervention recognized by the international community as invasion. Efforts to resolve the protracted dispute known as the Cyprus problem are ongoing. The church is located north of the 110-mile United Nations buffer zone that separates the two communities.
Following decades of destruction and deterioration, Saint Charalambos was the first church to be restored in the Turkish-occupied northern part of the island. The 10-year effort (2004–2014) was bi-communal and has been hailed as a success of cooperation. Yet deep logistical, emotional, and spiritual struggles persist. Restoration volunteer Petros Anastasiou paraphrased a painful dilemma echoed by Greek Cypriot worshippers: “You will restore it but it will not be yours.”
Among the roughly 250,000 Cypriots internally displaced in 1974 was Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, who fled Kontea as a 10-year-old refugee and is now faculty here at the College of Design. Saint Charalambos is where her parents married and she was baptized. The trauma of her experience has been formative to her personal and scholarly commitment to education around architecture, resilience, and cultural heritage in displacement.
This installation presents new photography and interview content coordinated by Dr. Hadjiyanni to reveal what this church means from a displacement perspective today. It complements her 2024 documentary When You Cannot, whose title derives from the Greek poet and diplomat George Seferis.
This exhibition is organized by Tasoulla Hadjiyanni, Ph.D.,
Northrop Professor, Distinguished Global Professor, Interior Design.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Photography by Antonis Engrafou
Restoration original footage (2004–2014) by David Hands, Crewhouse Media Ltd.
Title treatment by Zenas Seiji Ikeda
Funding for Dr. Hadjiyanni’s research is provided by the UMN Imagine Fund’s Annual Faculty Research Grant and the Global Programs and Strategy Alliance’s Award for Global Engagement.
The curator extends special thanks to Charalambos Perikleous, Petros Anastasiou, Nikos Larkou, and Andreas Patsias for their work as restoration leaders; Pavlos Attalides, Theano Vassiliades, Charalambos Chotzakoglou, Kontea Heritage Foundation, and the Kontea Municipal Council for research support; Ali Tayip for location support; and Jennifer Yoos, Malini Srivastava, Greg Donofrio, Aidan O’Connor, Robert Glunz, Jill Bezecny, Sevrena Whitney, Laureen Berlin-Gibson, and Kevin Vi for College of Design support.
This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
