TIMIOS STAVROS MONASTERY IN OMODOS

This Greek Orthodox monastery (Ιερά Μονή Τιμίου Σταυρού/Iera Moni Timiou Stavrou, Monastery of the Holy Cross) has not housed monks since 1917. But it attracts visitors from all over the world for the relics it contains and, to a lesser extent, for its museums. Its origins are unclear. According to one legend, it was founded in the ^3rd century on the spot where a relic of the Holy Cross (Timios Stavros), on which Christ was put to death, was discovered. The other version is that it was founded in the ^4th century by St. Helena (mother of the first Christian emperor Constantine), after she rediscovered the Holy Cross in Palestine in 326. In fact, the present complex was built from the ^17th century onwards, and the main church (now the parish church) took its present form when it was renovated in 1858. The whole is quite elegant. At the entrance stands the bust of the higoumene (abbot) Ikonomou Dositheos, killed by the Ottomans for his support of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Among the - alleged - relics preserved in the church are fragments of the Cross and Ropes of Christ (set in a large silver cross), as well as the chariot (mentioned in the Bible) and the skull of the apostle Philip. The adjoining buildings house a folk museum (furniture, traditional embroidery, etc.), an ecclesiastical museum (icons from the ^16th to ^19th centuries), an art gallery and an exhibition of Omodos photographs.