Saint Therapon's underground tomb in Larnaca lies on a petrol station's plot

In Larnaca's Tourabi quarter, next to the Drosia Gymnasium, an underground tomb that church tradition gives to Saint Therapon lies on a petrol station's plot. A video by the social-media page Στο Νησί (On the island) revived interest in it in early November.

Therapon was bishop of a coastal see of Cyprus, killed in his church during the Arab raids of the 7th century. The Larnaca tomb is a pre-Christian burial turned chapel, where a mosque called Tourabi once stood [1, no. 5]. In the 18th century the traveller Mariti found it revered by Muslims and Greeks alike, and in 1918 F. W. Hasluck suggested that an "Arab" saint became Tourabi for Muslims and then Therapon for Christians [2, pp. 170–171]. Graves of ancient Kition lie nearby: Tourabi Tomb 38 held Phoenician plates, a two-spouted lamp and a storage jar [3, nos. 495–99, 533, 559, 583].

In July 2018 the Larnaca MP Annita Demetriou asked how the tomb would be conserved and displayed. Vasiliki Anastasiadou, then Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, replied that the Department of Antiquities had asked in September 2017 for the lease of the Turkish Cypriot plot under the station not to be renewed. As moving the station could take years, the Department asked its operator to help build a shelter so the tomb, hidden under makeshift covers, could be opened. The company agreed; the shelter was expected by March 2019, with visits then allowed under strict conditions.