What I learned while eating sushi

From the Cyprus Mail, 24th January 2007


Makarios cut down to size
By Jean Christou

THE CHURCH is to remove the giant bronze statue of Archbishop Makarios that has graced the grounds of the Archbishopric for the past 15 years and replace it with a more realistic option.

The announcement was made by Archbishop Chrysostomos yesterday. He said there had been so many complaints about the ten-metre statue over the years that it was time for it to go.

He said it would be replaced with a two-metre marble likeness of Makarios that would be a more realistic size.
“It’s moving because a lot of people have reacted over the size,” the Archbishop told the Cyprus Mail. “People say it’s too big and is an eyesore.”

The statue was designed and sculpted by Nikos Kotziamanis between 1984 and 1987 and placed right in front of the Archbishopric. It was the brainchild of the previous Archbishop Chrysostomos, who was replaced as the Cypriot Church leader late last year following an extended illness.
The new Archbishop said his predecessor had wanted it the way it was made and would not listen to any opposing views. It had been suggested to him that the giant statue was fine but would look better out of the city in an open area or at a high elevation.

Chrysostomos II said he was now looking for a sculptor in Greece to discuss the new statue. “We are going to put a more life-size statue in the Archbishopric and move the bigger one out of Nicosia to a non-residential area,” he said. ‘It could be at Kykkos or it could be Panayia. We have not decided yet.”

Chrysostomos said it might even take a year for the move to be made, depending on how long it would take to have the new statue made. “We are not in a hurry,” he said. He also said the costs would be large. “But it needs to be done,” he added.

Kotziamanis, one of the most prolific sculptors around, could not be reached for comment yesterday.
His first sculpture of Makarios was a bronze 18-inch head in 1979. He has also created fibre glass figures of Makarios for the municipalities of Larnaca and Nicosia, a 2.5 metre bronze statue of Makarios for Pedhoulas, in 1981, and a 4.5 metres one for Larnaca Municipality in 1983, among other Makarios tributes.
He has also bronzed Lord Byron, EDEK honorary chairman Vassos Lyssarides, former Greek Prime Minster Andreas Papandreou, the late Cyprus President Spyros Kyprianou, ex US President Bill Clinton and British Speaker of the House of Commons, Betty Boothroyd.
In April 2005 he was attempting to get off the ground a project to recreate the Colossus of Rhodes.





Opws se vlepw kai me vlepeis.
O archepiskopos panta epanaprosdiorizei to kitsch. Etsi paei.
Culture is in flux baby.
Culture is in flux.