The practice of appropriating the sacred sites of other religious traditions and converting them to mosques, or destroying the non-Muslim buildings and constructing a mosque on the same site, has abundant precedent worldwide.
Consider Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, the Church of St. John the Baptist/Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, thousands of mosques built over destroyed Hindu temples in India, and the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
The idea in every case, including this one, is to declare the victory and supremacy of Islam, and to show how Islam has prevailed over other religions.
“Cyprus: Outrage Over Turkish Plans To Turn Historic Monastery Into Mosque,” by Thomas O’Reilly, The European Conservative, August 20, 2023:
Plans to partially convert a historic Cypriot monastery into a mosque have incurred the wrath of ecclesiastical authorities and Cypriot nationalists, as authorities in the Turkish-occupied north of the country temporarily shelved the idea following a very public backlash.
An announcement late last month of a proposal by local Islamic groups to build a Muslim prayer centre (masjid) on the grounds of the Apostolos Andreas Monastery sparked national outrage as officials in the south of the island said it was “unthinkable” that the plans could go ahead.
The twelfth-century Apostolos Andreas Monastery—associated with St. Andrew the Apostle, despite being located in the Turkish-occupied north-eastern quadrant of the island—has been compared to the “Lourdes of Cyprus” by many historians and is a site of paramount religious importance to the island’s Orthodox Christian community….
A local bishop has condemned plans to build a permanent Islamic prayer centre on the grounds of the monastery, which is currently undergoing restoration work. According to the bishop, Turkish officials have already moved Islamic prayer mats into the monastery without consulting with monks and are preparing for the long-term construction of a mosque on site.
The move has stirred up very recent historical memories on the island, where an estimated 550 Greek Orthodox monasteries, churches, and chapels were desecrated following the Turkish invasion, with many Christians forced to flee the northern half of the island for fear of persecution….
The matter of Apostolos Andreas Monastery was raised in the European Parliament by socialist MEPs Giorgos Georgiou and Niyazi Kizilyürek, who linked the move to direct Turkish financial backing and asked the Commission what steps it would take to protect Cyprus’s Christian heritage.