{"id":3830,"date":"2021-12-30T09:52:55","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T07:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cypruscrosspath.com\/project\/leukosia\/"},"modified":"2022-03-25T07:16:33","modified_gmt":"2022-03-25T05:16:33","slug":"leukosia","status":"publish","type":"dt_portfolio","link":"https:\/\/cypruscrosspath.com\/en\/project\/leukosia\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicosia"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]May 1727<\/p>\n

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 …<\/span><\/p>\n

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, and there are also some Roman Catholics and Armenians. The number of the Christian churches inside the town all told is nine; the rest are all Turkish mosques, which have been converted from holy churches. There is not a single Greek monastery; there is, however, a French one and an Armenian church.<\/span><\/p>\n

* Barskij makes no specific mention of the catholic church of the Holy Cross, which existed in Nicosia since 1642. No reference is made to the Cross of Misirikkos.\u00a0<\/code>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”1\/4″][vc_single_image image=”1826″ img_size=”full”][\/vc_column][vc_column width=”3\/4″][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1647636037979{background-color: #ededed !important;}”]”Les Grecs la nomment Stavros tou Missiricou, \u201cla Croix de Missiricou\u201d. Ce qu\u2019il y a de bizarre, c\u2019est l\u2019origine que l\u2019on assigne ici \u00e0 ce nom. Missiricou ne serait autre chose que le nom fran\u00e7ais d\u00e9figur\u00e9 de \u201cMonsieur Henri\u201d, \u201cla croix de Monsieur Henri\u201d. Je ne vois rien l\u2019impossible dans cette explication, mais quell est cet Henri?<\/em>”<\/p>\n

\u00c9mile Deschamps,\u00a0Au pays d'Aphrodite: Chypre: carnet d'un voyageur, <\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span>Paris 1898, pp. 66-67.\u00a0<\/code><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row content_placement=”middle”][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”2874″ img_size=”600×800″ add_caption=”yes” alignment=”center” onclick=”custom_link” img_link_target=”_blank” link=”https:\/\/www.europeana.eu\/en\/item\/22\/_56906″][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

Gilded cross from the Armenian church of Nicosia (\u00a9 Department of Antiquities of Cyprus)<\/code><\/p>\n

[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1647785035467{border-top-width: 10px !important;border-bottom-width: 10px !important;border-top-color: #ddc385 !important;border-bottom-color: #ddc385 !important;border-radius: 5px !important;}”]”This small church or chapel is an excellent example of the style of art and the mixture of architectural elements which seems to have prevailed in Cyprus during the Venetian Occupation. The cruciform plan crowned by a cupola is Byzantine, the buttresses with dripstones suggest the mediaeval period, whilst the decorative stone carving is evidently copied from drawings of a classic or renaissance description. It was doubtless the intention of the builders to imitate one of the small churches so common in a Venetian city. It has been supposed that this church is referred to by Dapper (\u2018Les iles de l’Archipel\u2019) as belonging to the Italian Missionaries in the XVIIth century\u2014the name corrupted from \u2018the Cross of the Missionaries,\u2019 its Turkish name seems to be \u2018Arab-jami,\u2019 or the mosque of the Arab slaves, and the most probable derivation of \u2018missericou\u2019 is from the Arabic \u2018Misr\u2019 meaning Egypt, the land from which most of the Arab slaves would have come, although the prefix \u2018Stavro\u2019 seems odd applied to a mosque.”<\/p>\n

G. Jeffery, A description of the historic monuments of Cyprus. Studies in the archaeology and architecture of the island<\/em><\/a>, Cyprus 1918, p. 45.<\/code><\/span><\/p>\n

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