The Monastery of St. John Chrysostomos, now a military base

Fleeing the epidemic that had broken out after the earthquake, Barsky left Lefkosia and set off on a five-month expedition around Cyprus on foot, the result of which is the first academic description of the island’s Christian antiquities in the Russian language. Of the 60 monasteries he knew, he managed to visit 50 one way or another and to sketch 20 (far fewer of these drawings have survived). The expedition began with the famous Monastery of St. John Chrysostomos in Koutsovendis, which stands on the slope of the Pentadaktylos mountain range. Today it houses a Turkish military base, and entry is forbidden to all except Turkish military personnel. The monastery buildings can be seen from the road leading to the base.

When the Turks invaded in 1974, the complex contained a church (kafolikon) dedicated to St. John Chrysostomos (1891) with a side chapel (parecclesion) devoted to the Holy Trinity and a belfry (1957), as well as several residential and utility buildings (probably dating to the late 17th century), as well as adjoining chapels of the Saviour (late 11th – early 12th century) and Panagia Aphendrika (the Holy Mother of God) (late 12th century, with poorly preserved paintings dating to the late 12th – early 13th century) in the cemetery near the monastery.

 Then I, fearing the epidemic, going out from the town of Lefkosia, from the archbishop’s court, went first to the monastery of St. John Chrysostomos [1], which is found three hour’s ride from Lefkosia. This monastery was founded on an uneven place, which was flattened with great difficulties and much royal help, in the middle of a dry, high and waterless upland, having hard and strong stone; on the north side of it are very high mountains, and to the east, west and south is a very large field, as far as the eye can see. It stands on a lonely, silent and cheerful place; there are cedars and a spring of water near the mountain, flowing into the monastery day and night, and the air is healthy. On the western side is an orchard, which has garden trees: oranges, lemons and three cypresses, and on the south side, close to the monastery, there are two very fair cypresses.

The monastery was originally founded in the name of the Holy Trinity, as I heard from the hegumen and the old monks, then for many years it lay empty, and was again renewed and consecrated in the name of St. John Chrysostomos, I think, because of the ktitor Ioann [2], because there is such a custom. And thus began its history. Then on Cyprus was a kingdom (so they tell), in the time of early Christianity; one empress was suffering from an ailment, which the Greeks call λώβη [lóvi]. The Slavs, I think, call it leprosy, hence the word “lepers”. Afflicted with such scabs, she in the summer time suffered greatly from the heat of the sun and illness and created on the summit of the mountain a tent and sat there all summer, for coolness and relief from illness, and in the winter came down. Through many years the ailing empress could not be cured, she had a vision in her sleep, commanding her to go down to the right of the mountain and find a spring of flowing water, wash with it and then she would regain her health. And she did this. On waking in the morning, she ordered her servants to bear her from the tent down the mountain. Spending the whole day in careful search, the empress found the spring, which flows to this day into the monastery, and, having washed with this water, was cured of the illness. Afterwards, as a sign of gratitude, she built a church in the name of the Holy Trinity with a monastery around it, with high stone walls, as you see in my drawing.

This church is ancient, very decrepit and on the point of ruin [3]. There is also a second, attached to this one, built later, in the name of the holy John Chrysostomos [4]. It has one dome, and in itself is small and cramped, but very skilfully constructed and handsome, adorned with different kinds of marble and porphyry, like the churches of the holy mountain of Athos. In it are four marble pillars, one and a half sazhens [5] in height, in thickness more slender than a human neck. They are so well polished, that in them, as in a mirror, the human face is reflected. I marvelled greatly that they had been preserved under the Christ-hating Hagarenes, because in many places there in the church valuable marbles are broken and smashed, ripped from their places.

During the time of the Turkish dominion, when they seized the island of Cyprus from the Christians, the monks fled into the mountains and deserts, fearing the Hagarenes, who found the monastery empty, and, reckoning on finding treasures beneath the marbles, they mercilessly smashed it and excavated the decoration of this church, the consequences of which are visible now, I saw this with my own eyes and was greatly sorry. Moreover, I was surprised by the beauty that had survived: how beautifully paved with different marbles was the floor inside the church and in the narthex [6], also the thresholds and frames of the doors, of which there are six, one from the north and one from the south, three from the west and in the western narthex one small door. The carved iconostasis, polyeleos [7] and the whole arrangement of the church is of great quality; the church is painted from top to bottom, from the very dome. The church is built from large natural stones, well-hewn, with the inclusion of large strong plinths. The monastery is not very big, it has five or six cells and as many monks, who sing demurely in the church. Before, there were many monks and the monastery was subordinate to the archbishop; later, after abandonment and the imprisonment of many, it came under the power of the Hagarenes, who then sold it to one of the noble folk, men, a pious Christian, for a good price, with the signing of a deed, and he owned (the monastery) for many years. When he happened to go to Jerusalem to worship, he donated the monastery to the Holy Sepulchre, and since then, although it lies within the diocese of the archbishop, it is not under his authority, but is subordinate to the Jerusalem patriarchate. There I stayed for four days…

Stranstvovaniya Vasiliya Grigorovicha-Barskogo po svyatym mestam Vostoka c 1723 po 1747 / Edited by N. Barsukov. Part 2. (St. Petersburg, 1886), 245-247.

Location and the route

Coordinates: 35.274100 33.419300 − Monastery of St. John Chrysostomos

Notes

[1] The Monastery of St. John Chrysostomos at Koutsovendis. Anna Zakharova devotes an article to it in the Orthodox Encyclopaedia, in which Barsky is mentioned.
The etymology of the name is connected to one of the ktitors of the monastery, Eumathius Philocalus, a celebrated military commander under Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus. This great leader, who initiated the construction of the chapel of the Holy Trinity, was lame in both legs. In Greek, “lame” is κουτσός (koutsós), and “lord”, including in the meaning of “great leader” is αὐθέντης (afthéntis) – lord (from this Greek word comes the Turkish polite form of address effendi). If you put these two words together, you get “Koutsovendis” – “lame leader”.

Between 1152 and 1159 the venerable Neophytos the Recluse sought spiritual retreat here, then his younger brother Ioann, who became steward of the monastery in 1176, and abbot around 1214.

[2] A ktitor (Gr. Κτήτωρ) was a contributor or donor to the construction of a church or monastery.
[3] He is referring here to the kafolikon, or church of the Holy Trinity. It was reconstructed in 1891.
[4] Here he is referring to the paracclesion, or chapel of the Holy Trinity, built in the late 11th – early 12th century. It is known for its partially preserved frescoes, also dating from the late 11th or early 12th century.
[5] A pre-Soviet Russian unit of measurement equivalent to just over two metres.
[6] In early Christian and Byzantine basilicas and churches, the narthex was an antechamber or vestibule, situated at the western end of the nave.
[7] Also known as a polycandelon, a polyeleos was a lamp holding many candles, typically found in Byzantine churches.

Literature, links

Zykova N. V., Palomnichestvo na Kipr pravoslavny (po stopam Vasiliya Grigorovicha-Barskogo), (Larnaca, Izdatelstvo Russkogo pravoslavnogo obrazovatelnogo tsentra, 2013), 20-22.

Bliznyuk S.V., Leonty Makhera i ego khronika “Povest o sladkoi zemle Kipr” / Translated from the Cypriot dialect of medieval Greek, introductory essay and commentary by S.V. Bliznyuk (Moscow, 2018), 62.

Carr, Annemarie Weyl. “Dumbarton Oaks and the Legacy of Byzantine Cyprus,” Near Eastern Archaeology 71, no. 1/2 (2008): 95-103. JSTOR 20361353.

Kelly, John N.D. Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom – Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 2011).

Mango, Cyril, E. J. W. Hawkins, and Susan Boyd. “The Monastery of St. Chrysostomos at Koutsovendis (Cyprus) and Its Wall Paintings. Part I: Description,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 63-94. doi:10.2307/1291618

Papacostas, Tassos, Cyril Mango, and Michael Grünbart. “The History and Architecture of the Monastery of Saint John Chrysostomos at Koutsovendis, Cyprus,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 61 (2007): 25-156. JSTOR 25472047.

Parani, Maria. “The Monastery of St. Chrysostomos at Koutsovendis, Cyprus: The Wall-Paintings,” Dumbarton Oaks (16 March 2017). Accessed 21 October 2017 (http://www.doaks.org/research/support-for-research/fellowships/reports/2004-2005/parani).

© Yuliya Buzykina
English translation by Alastair Gill