Beaulieu Monastery (Cyprus)

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Cistercian Abbey Beaulieu (Cyprus)
location Cyprus RepublicRepublic of Cyprus Cyprus , Nicosia
Coordinates: 35 ° 10 '26 "  N , 33 ° 21' 14"  E Coordinates: 35 ° 10 '26 "  N , 33 ° 21' 14"  E
Serial number
according to Janauschek 		620
founding year 1235
Year of dissolution /
annulment 		around 1470
Mother monastery Balamand Monastery
Primary Abbey Morimond Monastery

Daughter monasteries

Stazousa (?)

The monastery Beaulieu (Bellus locus) was a Cistercian abbey on the island of Cyprus .

history

The monastery was built in 1235 as a subsidiary of the Cistercian Abbey of Balamand (Belmont) in the vicinity of Pyrgos in the Limassol district and thus belonged to the filiation of the primary abbey of Morimond . After a short time it was moved in front of the city wall of Nicosia , where it was excavated in 1901 by Camille Enlart on the axis of Ayia Sophia and Panaya tis Tyrou. After the fall of Antioch in 1268, the monks from the monastery of St. George of Jubin first moved to this monastery.

The 13th and 14th centuries were a time of economic boom and prosperity for the abbey. The abbots oversaw the neighboring Cistercian convent of St. Theodor . The decline of the convent began with the Genoese invasion of the Kingdom of Cyprus in 1373 and the Mameluk raids of the first half of the 15th century, which also affected the abbey property. Probably during the reign of King James II , the Cistercians left the island around 1470. The abbey was incorporated into the diocese of Limassol in order to strengthen its income. Around 1500 the abbey buildings were occupied by Franciscan observants who lived in the area until the monastery was demolished in 1567, when it had to give way to Nicosia's new city wall.

After the foundation walls of the monastery were found in 1901, they were first filled in again and the exact location was forgotten. As part of an emergency excavation by Eftychia Zachariou in 2005, the monastery was found again under an area previously used as a parking lot. In the meantime, the site of the former monastery has been built over with the new building for the urban planning authority of the Ministry of the Interior.

literature

  • Angel Nikolaou-Konnari, Chris Schabel (eds.): Cyprus. Society and culture 1191-1374. Brill, Leiden 2005, ISBN 90-04-14767-5 .
  • Demetrios Michaelides (Ed.): Historic Nicosia , Nicosia 2012.
  • Michael Olympios: Between St Bernard and St Francis: A Reassessment of the Excavated Church of Beaulieu Abbey, Nicosia. In: Architectural History 55, 2012, pp. 25–55 ( full text ).
  • Jean Richard: The Cistercians in Cyprus . In: The Second Crusade and the Cistercians, New York 1992, pp. 199-209.
  • Philippos Stylianou: Nicosia's Medieval history comes to light at excavation site . In: Cyprus Weekly, June 15, 2006.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Andrew Jotischky: The perfection of solitude: hermits and monks in the Crusader States , Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, Pa. 1995, pp. 60-61, with reference to Bernard Hamilton: The Cistercians in the Crusader States , in One yet Two, Monastic Tradition East and West , Cistercian Studies 26 (1976), 420.
  2. ↑ Olympios, pp. 27f .; Richard, pp. 203f.
  3. ↑ Stylianou; Michaelides, p. 173.