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Selected and rare materials, excerpts and observations from ancient, medieval and contemporary authors, travelers and researchers about Cyprus.
 
 
 
 
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CLAUDE DELAVAL COBHAM
Exerpta Cypria
page 223

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we got to the village called, like the church, Agia Nappa. This, like nil which I have seen in Cyprus, WHS almost destroyed, partly by the usual tyranny of the Turks, partly through the great pestilence which had wasted the island a few years before, killing most of its inhabitants. The church itself, built, perhaps out of respect to the pirates, somewhat like a square castle, is still standing. There is a large quadrangle with moins round it, the church being on the left as you enter, reached by many steps, as well as the underground cinipe! which is formed out of the very grotto in which the sacred image was found. A Hupa* or Greek priest takes care of the church, and officiates in it, and there are certain Calogrie or linns, who ha™ abandoned the world and devoted themselves to the service of God : they are decently clajd in black, bnt aire not cloistered, fu the middle of the courtyard is a fountain of spring-water, built up ns we might bnild one, and not lmdly, of marble. Over this at mi great height they have placed a dome on four pillars, with raised seats or platforms of Eastern fashion right round it, a cool and shady resting place. Here we settled down, ate there by day and slept at night, when the murmur of the water was particularly pleasant. We did not wish to disturb anyone, even supposing we could have dune so, for the rooms were full of people, men aud wmnen, Greek Christians with η few Turks among them, who were there before ns. They were playi-ig, singing, dancing, drinking, amusing themselves, and we ainnsed ourselves likewise. Next morning mass after the Greek rite was sung in the church, at which 1 assisted as far as the end of the Gospel. Wthin the church in a comer apart is an altar where onr Latin priests, if any should come here, say mass. The church is just a small grotto, the image ancient, the altar adorned after the Greek rite in the usual way. We found aud ate in this place a large quantity of urrreuCr/it, called by the Greeks sycalidia, which at this season are caught in such abundance that besides the numbers that are consumed in the island itself thousands are exported, preserved in vinegar, to Venice and elsewhere. Those of Agia Nappa are now and then unwholesome, when they have eaten seammony. They innst have found this food elsewhere, for the herb does not grow about the village. September 16. We left Agia Nappa at daybreak, aud as we passed Xilofago dismounted to see the chnrch dedicated to S. George. Among the other saints painted therein we found Agios Mapeas or San Maina. He is greatly venerated by the Greeks, who say he was a martyr buried in Cyprus, and have some story to explain why he is pninted riding on a lion. We broke onr fast at Ormidia, and rested for some hours in the porch of the church dedicated to Consentine, whom the Greeks reckon among their saints, and so rode back in the dark to dine at Larnaca with the consul. September 17. I returned early to our vessel, and stopped on the way to see a Greek chnrch in the Marina, called S. Lazarus, it belonged originally to the Armenians, and in a buttress of its outer walls all the stones are inscribed with Armenian letters. Why it is held now by the Greeks is possibly because there are no Armenians here, as there must have been formerly. It is very ancient, entirely of stone, its arrangement fantastic though common among the Greeks, for there are three aisles with a roof supported on four piers only, and three domes in a row over the middle aisle, and three apses without. Within, the space between the piers is used by men, the aisles on either side by women only. Behind the altar they show underground a tomb like a small grotto, which can be entered through a sqnare opening like the month of a vault. This, they say, is the grave of Lazarus who was restored to life by Christ: adding that he built the church, of which he was bishop; that he died here, and that his body was carried later to Constantinople and thence to Marseille, the truth of this being proved by the miracles which are daily worked at the tomb, the sick are healed, and the like. But this is contrary to histoiy, as we have it in the Breviary, Martyrology, Ac. DELLA VALLE. •2VÒ

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