Restoration work begins on the medieval Greek Church of St. George in Famagusta

Project work has begun to preserve the historic Greek Church of St. George in Famagusta. This was announced by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), noting that the project is being led by the bicommunal Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage with funding from the European Union and implementation by UNDP itself. Recently, representatives of the organizations, the project team, the advisory board, local stakeholders and community members held a joint on-site meeting to assess the condition of the site and identify priorities for the next stage of designing and protecting the monument.

The Greek Church of St. George, built in the 14th century in the Greek quarter, is one of the most important medieval monuments of Famagusta. In the late Lusignan period and under the Venetians, it served as the cathedral of the city’s Orthodox community. According to historians, the large cathedral was built in part as a response to the neighboring Latin Cathedral of St. Nicholas, highlighting the importance of the Orthodox community under the Frankish rulers. The monument is considered one of the finest examples of the rare Franco-Byzantine style, combining Gothic elements with traditional Byzantine architecture. To this day, traces of cannon fire remain visible on the building, left during the Ottoman siege of Famagusta in 1571, when the church was badly damaged.

The Technical Committee on Cultural Heritage, created in 2008 by Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaders under the auspices of the UN, works on restoring sites as part of the process of building trust between the two communities. Since 2010, UNDP has been supporting the committee in this work, with the European Union as the main donor. To date, dozens of monuments across the island have been conserved, and total funding has reached around 35.6 million euros. In particular, restoration work was completed in summer 2025 at the neighboring Latin Church of St. George, as well as at the Tuzla Mosque in Larnaca.