Cloisters of Monastery, Kantara. 1878. A lone priest contemplating.

Skirting the cliffs of the upper range of hills, the monastery of Kantara is reached. Kantara monastery presumably occupies the site of the Orthodox monastery of the middle ages, the centre of Orthodox resistance to the encroachments by the Latins in the XIIIth century.

It was here that John and Konon, the emissaries from Mount Athos took up their abode in 1230. "Here they collected around them a number of disciples, attracted to the spot by the fame of their austerity and good works. Reports of this saintly band at length reaching the ears of the Latins, they resolved to judge for themselves as to the truth of what they had heard...

The answers received proved satisfactory until their questioners came to touch upon that subject, so fertile in disputes between the two Churches, the use of azymes... Summoned within a stated period to answer before the Archbishop of Nicosia for the disrespectful way in which they had spoken of the Romish Mass, these intrepid men, beholding with joy the near approach of their long expected martyrdom, expressed their readiness to die a thousand deaths if necessary, for the Orthodox faith.

The night before their departure from Kantara they spent in the chapel of the monastery in prayer, and praise, and in participation in the Holy Eucharist. On the morrow they took their way to Nicosia where they lodged in the monastery of St. George of Mankana without the walls... As soon as their arrival was announced the Latin Archbishop Eustorgius ordered the holy monks to be brought before him. They at once obeyed the summons and with John and Konon at their head wended their way to the Archbishop's Palace, singing as they went the 119th psalm.

When they appeared he inquired if the report he had heard about them was true, and on their replying that it was, committed them to prison, hoping by such means to shake their fortitude... For three whole years did these devoted men endure without a murmur all the miseries of a most irksome captivity." (Hackett's " History of the Church of Cyprus," p. 94.)

They were eventually martyred with all the revolting circumstances of medieval fanaticism. After being dragged over the rocks of the river bed, tied to the tails of horses, their lifeless bodies were burnt and as a matter of course their relics were afterwards collected by the enthusiastic and admiring co-religionists.

So late as the time of Archimandrite Kyprianos the skull of the martyred Konon was preserved at Paphos (A.D. 1780).

The present monastery of Kantara consists of a small monotholos in the centre of a plot of ground intended to be surrounded in the usual way by a monastic enclosure, only half of which has been built. The church is of no architectural pretensions and with its surroundings probably dates from the XVIIIth century. Within it is a fine bronze chandelier of mediaeval style.

A small ruined church with earthenware plates stuck into the plastered vault is to be found to the west of Kantara Castle on the way up from the monastery.

| close window | detailed map |