Kourdali Village, Pitsilia area, Nicosia

Monastery of "Panagia Chrysokourdaliotissas"

For us Kourdali village was just a village on our way to Kakopetria that day. As we just passed Spilia village, Kourdali was next but we had no intention to stop.

As we passed through the village we saw a sign about the Monastery of "Panagia Chrysokourdaliotissas". We looked at each other and said: "why not?"

Lucky enough for us the monastery was just about to open for the afternoon. A nun was already there ready to open the door. We entered the Monastery and after lighting a candle we asked the nun to tell as the story.

The Monastery was build around 1500 by Ioannis and Leontas Kourdali. It is a wooden roof temple, a characteristic of many monasteries around the Troodos mountains area. Inside the temple you will find many well preserved Byzantine wall paintings of Saints.

Then the nun pointed out the importance of  the icon of Jesus Christ's Mother, Mary. On the icon, Holy Mother appears to hold Jesus as a child on the right side! This, as explained by the nun, is a characteristic of the paintings by Apostle Lucas, who has painted approximately 70 icons of Holy Mother in this way. Furthermore the icon has performed many miracles in the past!

Next the nun showed as another icon, this time of Apostle Barnabas, pictured as an Archbishop! This old icon states the importance and verifies the establishment of Cyprus as an autonomous Church! Apostle Barnabas is the first Saint of Cyprus.

Finally the nun pointed out the wooden seats inside the temple. The seats had a wooden craft of a dragon at each side! This was something we had never seen before. She told us that two of those seats are a few hundred years old and the rest were produced later on. The dragons were probably put there by the influence of the Venetians in the Cyprus culture at the time the monastery was constructed! The Venetians ruled Cyprus between 1489-1571.

That completed the tour of the monastery and it was time for us to move on. We thanked the nun for her assistance and wished her a happy Easter. We still had more things to discover...