Category: Discover Cyprus

Located on the east bank of a stream, 3km from the mountainous village of Nikitari, Panagia Asinou Church is a small church dedicated to the Virgin of ‘Phorbia’. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and contains some of the finest Byzantine wall paintings on the island, dating from the 12th to the 17th century.

The church used to be a monastery church that was built in 1099 with the donation of Magistros Nikephoros Ischyrios, who subsequently became a monk with the name Nikolaos. It functioned until the end of the 18th century, when it was abandoned.

The church consists of two parts – the vaulted single-aisled nave and the narthex – which is a later addition belonging to the second half of the 12th century. The 12th century steep-pitched timber roof, covered with flat tiles, sheltered the church. Today, there are no traces of the rest of the monastic buildings.

The murals inside the church date from the 12th century to the 17th century and reflect the art of Constantinople, which is thought to be the artist’s birthplace.

Church of Panagia tis Asinou or Panagia Phorviotissa – Audio Guide 

Located in the Solea Valley, in the village of Kourdali, the church of Panagia Chrysokourdaliotissa was built in the 16th century as a monastery church dedicated to Panagia (the Virgin Mary), and according to the foundation stone, was established by deacon Leone Kourdalis.

The preserved church is three-aisled, with a steep-pitched roof and flat roof tiles. The aisles of the church are divided from the nave by wooden arcades. The church contains wall paintings and icons of the 16th century in the Italo-Byzantine style, and the iconostasis is a fine example of wood sculpture of the 16th -17th centuries.

In 2006, the Holy Synod decided to re-establish the Monastery.

Located in the mountainous area of Pitsilia, between the villages of Lagoudera and Saranti, the 12th century church of Panagia tou Araka is a listed UNESCO World Heritage site and is considered to be of the most important Byzantine period churches on the island.

The church used to be a monastery church, built during the second half of the 12th century, when monastic life was flourishing in Cyprus. It survived until the first decades of the 19th century and its remains include a two-storey monastery building to the north, along with the church.

The church is a single-aisled domed structure with a cross-shaped, steep-pitched roof that extends to form a latticed-woodwork portico. During the 18th century, the west wall was demolished and the church was extended.

The frescos inside the church are comparable to those prevailing throughout Greece, the Balkans and Russia, and were painted by the artist Theodoros Apsevdis in the late Comnenian style (1192). Those in the apse of the bema are of a different style to those in the rest of the church, and it is believed that they were painted by another artist before 1192.

Panagia tou Araka – Audio Guide