On the tragic anniversary of Archbishop Kyprianos’s execution by hanging in Nicosia by the Ottomans in Limassol, the second operation to locate the remains of our national poet, Vasilis Michaelides, took place. He was the author who gave Cypriot poetry and literature one of its greatest works, the iconic poem “July 9, 1821,” a hymn to the timeless Hellenic spirit. 

The Limassol District Court accepted, for the second time, the request from the Limassol Writers’ Society “Vasilis Michaelides” and the poet’s close relatives for a new exhumation proceeding.

The President of the Limassol Writers’ Society, Giorgos Petousis, stated on the Alpha News program that, based on the experts’ recommendations, the entire contents of the grave have been exhumed, so that DNA testing can be performed on all the findings, which will be analyzed at the Institute of Neurology and Genetics. The grave is located in the Agios Nikolaos Cemetery and is registered as “unknown deceased,” where it is believed that our national poet is buried.

This time, the court order permits the exhumation of the grave’s entire contents, unlike the 2024 ruling, which stipulated that if more than one set of remains were found, the grave would be sealed. In addition to the belief that the remains of Vasilis Michailidis, who was buried in December 1917, are located there, the remains of a child up to ten years old and a 45-year-old woman, who were buried there fifty years ago, have been identified.

The excavation has reached a depth of more than 1.5 meters, as, according to researcher Aristides Koudounaris, on a Saturday of the Souls when he was a child, his grandmother took him to a grave on the eastern side of the cemetery and told him it was the grave of Vasilis Michailidis.

“Koudounaris wrote this to us in a letter and entrusted us with the responsibility. In 2017, on the 100th anniversary of Vasilis Michaelides’ death, we held a two-day event, and I spoke about the accusations being leveled against the people of Limassol, namely that we had abandoned Vasilis Michaelides and that we had made his grave disappear. And we set out to refute these accusations.”