NICOSIA (Reuters) – Unhappy lovers in Cyprus have been taking so much stone from the tomb of Saint Agapitikos to use in love potions that soon there won’t be anything left.
Dust from the grave in the courtyard of the church in the village of Arodes in Paphos district has been used for centuries by the lovelorn, who are supposed to slip it into the drink of their objet d’amour.
But in recent years so many have been filching shards of stone that a quarter of the tomb has disappeared.
Mayor of Arodes Matthaios Stefanou is unclear whether Cypriots’ love lives are becoming more troubled.
“A lot of people have said it works,” he said. “In the last few years I don’t know what’s come over people, but they are flocking to the tomb for the stuff.
“Just the other day locals saw some people visiting the tomb, and they were there for a very long time, in the end they walked off with a huge chunk of stone, maybe even half a kilo of it!”
The island’s antiquities department has been called in to help. “The only thing we can do is examine the damage and try to prevent any further damage,” said Maria Hadjicosti, the acting director. Saint Agapitikos — whose name means “lover” — is believed to have served in the German army of the Crusaders before settling as a hermit in the area.
“You’re very welcome to come and see the tomb, but please don’t go taking any of it with you now,” Stefanou said.
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This sounds like a clear cut case for environmentalism. Our precious non-renewable resources are being slowly dimished and they need to be protected. One quarter of the tomb has been taken already. At this rate, there will be no dust left for future generations of lonely, loveless people.
How about the people who take a half-kilo of the tomb? How dysfunctional do you have to be in relationships that you would need to have that much tomb dust to save your love-life?
My advice. Return the chunk, then get some counselling, deal with your relationships issues, develop self esteem, find some groups or people to hang out with, meet a potential mate, go on a few dates, be yourself, laugh, have a good time, openly share, then get the prescribed amount of loving tomb dust and slip it into his or her drink.
The story is kind of vague in its reporting also, I mean, how much tomb dust is a person supposed to use in a drink for it to be effective? Can it be a non-alcholic drink or is it more potent in alcohol? Could I just get my love to lick the tomb, would that work?
So many questions, so little answers. Maybe I’m just lacking faith
Well, the tomb is cheaper than the other love drug: roofies.
On one hand I thinks its kind of romantic that a person would bring their lover a piece of a tomb. Especially from a guy who basically named himself “Mclovin”
On the other hand, its sad that so many people think this kind of superstitious mumbo jumbo works. I would be appalled to find out that one) someone put something in my drink and a rock, really that’s disgusting and two) that a person I was with was a compete moron. Brains matter a lot to me in a relationship.
Turns out there is more to the story….
There are two ancient sarcophagi on either side of the church of St. Kalandionas one for the Saint of Love (Saint Agapitikos), which is believed to be the tomb of Saint Agapios and the other, on the north side, to the Saint of Hate (Saint Misitikos) which is believed to be where Saint Varlaam is buried.
There’s a tradition that if you want someone to love you, you scrape a little dust from the ‘love’ tomb and secretly and without the knowledge of anyone else, put the dust in the drink of the object of your desire, who will then fall in love with you. If you want to do someone harm, you do likewise with a scraping from the other tomb.
And true to human nature, “Saint Hate” is getting more visitors.
Lol, now this is about the funniest thing in the last while I have heard. I have been to Greece (north of Cyprus) – makes sense…one of the most superstitious places I have ever seen. And they have a saint for everything over there.
Personally, and this is obvious, the love rock/tombstone doesn’t work. People are basically taking dust from a headstone and putting it in people’s drinks unawares. There has to many cases where it didn’t work and the people complained to the barkeep that their scotch and soda was dirty tasting (actually costing the bar some money).
Superstitions are still alive and thriving out there…to me this reveals true ignorance in someone.
If the tomb rock works so well then why don’t they just go one step further and dig up his freakin’ grave and get a pice of his actual skeleton or something really radical like that. It is the next logical step if you really believe that this dead saint is the key to love.
“dig up his freakin’ grave and get a pice of his actual skeleton ” John
LOL, you could make a mean soup and have hundreds of women!
Yes I agree with Johnny Bird, they probably should just dig it up. I mean wouldn’t that made the most logical sense?
Who agrees with Johnny Bird on anything? LOL