The church of Agios Ioannis Prodromos in the village of Askas, Cyprus, contains a vast cycle of important and rare Byzantine wall paintings dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. Because of its importance to the cultural heritage of Cyprus, the church has been selected as one of the monuments to be studied in an INCO-MED project for the Conservation of Historical Mediterranean sites by innovative seismic protection techniques (CHIME). The computational model developed for the church is presented, as well as the measurements obtained by hammer-impact excitation. The fine-tuning of the selected computational model to match the dynamic characteristics obtained from the site measurements is also discussed. The model was used to test analytically the cost-effectiveness of damping devices in providing the best earthquake protection to the church without spoiling its monumental value. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.