A Monastic Escape for the Day

Upon returning from Famagusta and Salamis on Wednesday afternoon, it was time once again to do some editing on the documentary.  This editing carried through to Thursday as well but, since it was time to start piecing the documentary together as a whole, it was everyone else’s understanding that the bulk of work would now be carried out by the executive producer and the two producers.

So Dr. Legg came through for Chelsey, Kendra and I once again.  This time he offered to take us up into the Troodos Mountains to visit a monastery, since we hadn’t found the opportunity to visit one thus far in our trip.

The Troodos Mountains are an interesting feature on the island of Cyprus.  They are ultimately smaller than the Smoky Mountains in America and, like the rest of the island, are very sandy.  This means that the plant life is what you’d expect to find in any sandy climate, mostly pine trees, scrub bushes and dry grasses.  But for an island on which you can drive the entire length in five hours, the mountains are very extensive. 

 On the way up to the monastery, we stopped at a small chapel on the side of the road.  Turns out that it was the Church of Saint Onoufrios.  Saint Onoufrios was born to a barren mother in the 3^rd century and, after a divine calling, was dedicated by his father, the King of Persia, to a monastery in Egypt. 

He eventually traveled for 17 days into the desert of Thebes and became a hermit for 70 years.  It is said that an angel gave him communion every Sunday and, when Saint Pafnoutios was sent to Onoufrios the day before his death, Onoufrios ascended to heaven with Jesus in the form of a white dove.

But in this spot, in the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus, a monastery was found in 1450.  The monastery was dissolved during the Turkish rule of 1571 but abbot Parthenios rebuilt this Byzantine church in 1730.  The Monastery of Mahairas repaired it in 1818 and again in 1966.

To be perfectly honest, I’ve forgotten the name of the monastery we visited.  But, given the location of the Church of Saint Onoufrios, I believe that we actually visited the Monastery of Mahairas. 

 The monastery was peaceful, as I imagine a monastery should be.  It is located on the side of a mountain overlooking a valley and, in the distance, the small hamlet of Fjikardou.  And when we entered the chapel, the smell of polish was palpable as we witnessed monks hard at work cleaning the brass and gold candelabras, chandeliers and icons. 

The chapel had frescos painted on every wall and across the entire ceiling, but they all looked fairly new.  Dr. Legg informed us that chapels have a tendency to burn down every so often.  It may have something to do with the continued pervasive use of candles, but I think those candles help create a peaceful, reverent ambience that highly conducive to prayer, worship and fellowship.

 In Tudor England, monasteries were required to be self-sustaining in regards to income.  I’m not sure of the financial situation of the monasteries in Cyprus but I do know that every one has a shop where you can buy literature, icons, wine, and other religious regalia.  This leads me to believe that monasteries in Cyprus are also responsible for their own survival.

After the monastery, we were in dire need of sustenance.  So we traveled down the road a ways until we reached Fjikardou.  Dr. Legg had stopped at a small family owned restaurant there the previous year and wanted to share it with us.

Fortunately the venue was open, even though there are very few permanent residents of the town.  The town is busiest on weekends and holidays with tourists and locals who vacation in the small mountain town.  We ordered a dish called pastichio (the same dish we had eaten at two of our group dinners) and it was the most delicious pastichio I’d tasted so far.  It’s most comparable to a cross between baked spaghetti and lasagna.  For dessert we had “spoon sweets” which are fruit rinds that have been cured and covered in honey.

They were…. Interesting.  I couldn’t eat the fig though.  The inside of the fig gave my mouth a texture seizure.

We also stopped at a small village that is preserved and is being restored as an example of Ottoman construction.  The main focus, for now, in this town is a museum of sorts where you can walk through restored houses and see how people lived during the Ottoman period in Cyprus.

The houses are often stacked one on top of the other, rather like apartments I suppose.  If I’m not mistaken, there are actually only six permanent residents of this village.  And it didn’t seem like there were any inhabitable houses for any more than those six people.  There is definitely a lot of work ahead of the preservationists, but they are doing an incredible job.

 Again it makes me wish that America would focus more on preservation as it continually strives to advance.  After all, who would we be without our past?  And in preserving pieces of the past, we acknowledge the influence it has had on who we have become and who we hope to be.