May 1727 Nicosia is the most important and largest town on the island of Cyprus, and that is why the Turks rule there, as they own all of Cyprus … In Nicosia live all of the most important and rich people, and the merchants also live there. There are more Turks than there are Christians,…
July 1727 We left on July 3, bound again for Larnaca and the port of Alikas, from where it is only a walk of about four hours to the monastery of the Holy Cross, situated on a high mountain. We decided that we would make the effort to go worship there, but my companion reneged.…
1734 I came to a village called Lefkara, that is the white village, so called for the white clay which is found there. Only Christians live there, and there are no Turks there even today. In that village I spent a day and a night in the house of a Christian. There are two beautiful…
1735 In the beginning, in a cave found in a valley near that mountain, there lived the itinerant holy father Neophytos, an ancient saint of Cyprus. Here he also had a small church in another cave, which has survived to the present, which is inside the monastery on the western side… In the same place,…
People on Cyprus relate that Saint Helen, mother of the great emperor Constantine, when returning from Jerusalem where she had obtained the True Cross of Christ, arrived on Cyprus. She saw that the whole island was deserted and overgrown with dense forest and wishing to settle it with people, she ordered wherever possible for a…
1735 On leaving this place I returned to my plan to visit all of the monasteries and resumed walking in the high mountains, of which I have spoken earlier, as here are found many places which are worthy of veneration and concerning which I will speak later. I traveled from there for about three hours…
1735 After that, from there I walked for two hours, climbing a high mountain, and when the evening came I spent the night in the mountain village of Arminos. I spent the night in the manor house of the famous and rich archpriest, who was skilled in both secular and religious issues, called Father Michael,…
1735 The following day I left and walked half way around the mountain, for about an hour, to the village of Omodos, which is found in the mountains … It comes under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Paphos. There is a church of the True Cross, with a cupola, in which is preserved the…
1735 Once again I crossed the stream at the ford and walked through the neighboring mountains for an hour and I arrived at the monastery of the True Cross, called Kouka, named after the village in which it is found. When I visited the village it was deserted, with only one or two houses. The…
1735 I stayed there for two days and then left early in the morning and walked for about two hours or more and crossed to the other side of the slope of a low mountain, covered densely with various types of forest trees, especially enormous pine trees. So I reached the next monastery, about two…
