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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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Church of St. Catherine (Haydar Pasha Mosque)

Church of St. Catherine from book: William Dreghorn. The Antiquities of Turkish Nicosia

Church of St. Catherine from book: William Dreghorn. The Antiquities of Turkish Nicosia

CYPRUS: Historical and Descriptive.
From the earliest times to the present day. New York., 1878

The Church of St. Katherine, now turned into a mosque, has a fine entrance, adorned with three arches and pillars, with Corinthian capitals. Two stately marble columns lie in the court-yard; these, with their fine carved escutcheons, have been torn down by the Turks and employed as seats. The graves of the brave defenders of the city are still held in honor, and small cupolas are erected to mark their resting-places. The spot where the first Turk mounted and fell when the city was stormed, is also distinguished by a small dome. The gravestone is marble, and the coffin of wood, overshadowed by the green flag of the Prophet. Nikosia can boast a very unusual number of churches and mosques, and we are told that, when the city was at the height of its glory, there were no less than two hundred and fifty chapels and churches. Cyprus is also especially remarkable for the number of graves of its saints.

WILLIAM DREGHORN The Antiquities of Turkish Nicosia

This is in Kirlizade Street, about 300m north east of St. Sophia. In the 14th century, this was the second largest church in Nicosia and in 1570 became the Haidar Pasa Mosque. The building was not destroyed, but a tall minaret was added at one corner, as shown in fig. 13. There are two fine, richly carved doorways and two long lancet type windows which are worth a photograph. These large windows demand very strong buttresses as they made the wall weak, and those shown in fig. 13 are similar to St. Sophia' s. Little is known about the history of St. Catherine's.