In six months time the Menil Collection's Byzantine Fresco Chapel will stand empty. The institution's director Josef Helfenstein announced today that the Menil's impressive Byzantine frescoes — the only example of such 13th-century works currently in the Americas — will be leaving Houston and returning to the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus.

The news these days is full of reports of U.S. institutions having to return stolen Greek artifacts. However, this is not your typical restitution case. In fact, quite the opposite. It seems that back in 1983, founder Dominique de Menil was approached about buying the frescoes, but discovered them to have been stolen. She then contacted authorities in Cyprus and eventually went on to acquire and restore the frescoes on behalf of the small chapel from which they had been taken. This act of support won the Menil Collection a 20-year loan of the works.

Late this summer, the Menil collection met with Cyprus's Archbishop in hopes of extending the loan further, but the Greek Orthodox Church of Cyprus wants its frescoes to return to the land of their origin. A Menil representative told ARTINFO that the Houston museum has no current plans for the soon-to-be emptied Chapel and intends to determine its future purpose in coming months. In the meantime, there's still time to see the works: they remain on view until February of 2012.