Panagia Kantariotissa

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Panagia Kantariotissa
Detail of the west portal

Panagia Kantariotissa (also Kantara Monastery; Greek: Παναγία Κονταριώτισσα) was a monastery on the Karpas Peninsula in northeastern Cyprus . It was dedicated to Panagia Kantariotissa , Our Lady of Kantara . It is 550 m above sea level near the villages of Davlos and Ardana . The monastery got its name from the nearby castle Kantara , the name of which is of Arabic origin.

The 11th or 12th century Orthodox monastery is first mentioned in connection with two monks named Ioannis and Konon who came to the region from Asia Minor in 1221 . The soon-to-be-known monks were gradually joined by a further eleven monks who, however , were accused of heresy by the Catholic Church, which has dominated Cyprus since 1191 . They were captured in 1229 and burned on May 19, 1231 on the banks of the Pedieos in Nicosia . The spiritual community was probably wiped out. The background to these events may have been the efforts of the Rome-oriented Church to prevent the influx of men into the Orthodox monasteries or the priesthood who they believed wanted to escape the feudal burdens. Corresponding resolutions passed a meeting on October 20, 1220.

In the middle of the 17th century Archbishop Nikiforos founded a new monastery and Archbishop Chrysanthos (1767–1810) had the building rebuilt in 1777. Abbot Makarios commissioned the icon painter Laurentios in 1783 to paint the icons of the iconostasis , whereby the act of reestablishment by Nikiforos was also depicted. 14 monks lived in the monastery at that time.

But from the middle of the 19th century, fewer and fewer monks lived there, at the end of the century only the almost hundred-year-old hermit Symeon lived in the buildings, who originally came from Constantinople and had lived on Sinai for 40 years, only to have been in Kantara for 20 years stay. In addition to him, six priests and a bishop by Esmé Scott-Stevenson were found at the service. The bishop had three huts built for visitors next to the Hermitage. In the second decade of the 20th century, George Jeffery described it as a small church surrounded by monastic buildings.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the land of the monastery was leased, and repairs were still being made to the bell tower. In 1925 families from Famagusta acquired monastery land and a mountain resort was built with the support of the British colonial administration. The church of the monastery became a kind of parish church, where Mary's Assumption was celebrated on August 15th . On May 19, the martyrdom of the Thirteen Monks was commemorated every year. According to tradition, these were Abbots Ioanis, Konon, Jeremiah, Markus, Kyril, Theoktistos, Barnabas, Maximos, Theognostus, Joseph, Gennadios, Gerasimos and Germanos.

The veneration as a martyr can first be grasped in the 15th century. The Diigisis , a 14th century manuscript, has come down to us in two manuscripts. One dates from 1426 and is in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris , the second in the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice (Ms. 575).

On August 14, 1974, the Turkish army occupied Kantara. As the building was no longer used, interior fittings and works of art could easily be stolen. After all, Father Ctorides had photographed the icons so that there is a chance of finding and returning.

Web links

Commons : Panagia Kantariotissa  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Burg Kantara on burgenwelt.org
  2. ↑ William M. Johnston, Christopher Kleinhenz (Ed.): Encyclopedia of Monasticism. Fitzroy Dearborn, Chicago / London 2000 and Routledge, London 2015, ISBN 978-1-579-58090-2 , p. 348; the sources are mentioned by Angel Nicolaou Konnari, Christopher David Schabel: Cyprus. Society and Culture 1191-1374. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2005, p. 196, note 82.
  3. ^ Catia Galatariotou: The Making of a Saint. The Life, Times and Sanctification of Neophytos the Recluse. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1991, ISBN 0-521-39035-4 , p. 235.
  4. ^ Esmé Scott-Stevenson: Our Home in Cyprus. Chapman and Hall, London 1880, pp. 263-267 ( digitized version ).
  5. ^ George Jeffery: A Description of the Historic Monuments of Cyprus. William James Archer, Nicosia 1918, p. 244 ( digitized version ).
  6. ↑ This manuscript was published by Konstantin Sathas , Venice 1873, pp. 20–39.

Coordinates: 35 ° 23 ′ 5.5 ″  N , 33 ° 53 ′ 56.8 ″  E