Akrotiri (Cyprus)

Akrotiri Ακρωτήρι Ağrotur
Basic data
State :	United Kingdom
British overseas territory :	Akrotiri and Dekelia
Geographic coordinates :	34 ° 36 '  N , 32 ° 57'  E Coordinates: 34 ° 36 '  N , 32 ° 57'  E
Residents :	684 ( Census 2001 )

Akrotiri ( Modern Greek : Ακρωτήρι, literally Cape , Turkish : Ağrotur) is a village on the peninsula of the same name within one of the two British military bases Akrotiri and Dhekelia in the British overseas territory Akrotiri and Dekelia (Sovereign Base Area, SBA) on Cyprus . It is the only village in the western of the two military bases with a significant civilian population.

In the village there are two small churches dedicated to the Holy Cross and St. George . South of the village is an area called Kurias or Kouria (Modern Greek: Κουριά) with the ruins of an ancient settlement .

Saint Nicholas of the Cats Monastery

Two kilometers east of the village is the ancient monastery of Saint Nicholas of the Cats (modern Greek: Άγιος Νικόλαος των Γατών) in the midst of fields and olive groves .

history

The monastery is mentioned by travelers as early as the 15th century, but Felix Fabri , a Dominican who visited Cyprus in 1480 and 1483, mentions Saint Nicholas as a remote monastery surrounded by snakes where the monks kept cats to watch out for Protect snakes. In the 16th century, Stefano Lusignan reports a legend according to which Saint Helena visited the monastery inhabited by poisonous snakes during her visit to Cyprus. Hundreds of cats from Egypt or Palestine were imported to where her ship landed, the Akrotiri peninsula. The governor Kalokeros is said to have founded the monastery and the cats have settled there.

architecture

Parts of the current church date from the time of the Lords of Lusignan , in particular the door with an archway on the north side of the building.

Infrastructure

Akrotiri port is to the east of the town .

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  Harbor, 1985

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  Monastery Church, 1973

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  Monastery, 1973

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  Monastery, 1973

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  Klostertor, 2017

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  Monastery shop and monastery gallery, 2017

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  2017

literature

The Nobel laureate Giorgos Seferis wrote in 1969 a poem about Saint Nicholas of the Cats .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} George H. Everett Jeffery : A Description of the Historic Monuments of Cyprus .: Studies in the Archeology and Architecture of the Island (London: Zeno, 1983), pp. 371 and 373.
2. ↑ Nicolaou Konnari, Angel and Christopher Schabel: Lemesos: A History of Limassol in Cyprus from Antiquity to the Ottoman Conquest (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015)
3. ↑ George Seferis: Collected Poems , translated into English, edited and introduced by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (Princeton: University Press, 1995)