Agia Napa Monastery, Cyprus - Rock Cut Church, Monastery

Church, Monastery

In the center of Agia Napa is the celebrated Monastery, one of the last edifices erected in Cyprus by the Venetians, with a rock-cut church. "Our Lady of the Forests" monastery is constructed over a cavern in which an emblem of the Virgin Mary was found by a hunter chasing his dog. The monastery was founded in the 16th century by a Venetian nobleman's daughter who came here looking for an isolated retreat after her father refused to let her marry a commoner. She constructed two churches, one Catholic and one Orthodox, both of which are now under the same roof. The fountain house in the middle of the patio was built as her vault and bears pictures of her parents, herself and a lion chasing a deer. By the south wall is a doorway with a pool overlooked by a massive sycamore fig tree, which is said to be 600 years old.