SOURP MAGAR MONASTERY

Now in ruins, the Armenian Catholic monastery of Saint-Marcaire (Sourp Magar Manastırı, Μοναστήρι του Σουρπ Μαγκάρ/Monastiri tou Sourp Magar, Սուրբ Մակարի Վանք/Surb Makari Vank') dates from the Middle Ages. Surrounded by forests and isolated at an altitude of 515 m, it was founded around the year 1000 by Coptic Catholic ascetics from Palestine, then came under the authority of the Armenian Catholic bishopric of Cyprus from 1425. Home to important manuscripts and a miraculous icon of Saint Markarius of Alexandria, it became the main stopover for Armenian pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. Exempted from taxes by the Ottomans in 1642, the complex was abandoned in 1734. Rebuilt shortly afterwards, it housed only a small community of monks, before ceasing to function at the end of the ^19th century. It briefly served as a refuge for survivors of the Armenian genocide in the 1920s, then as a summer camp for the community's orphans. Partially destroyed by the Turkish army after the 1974 invasion, the complex forms a vast, irregular rectangle of outbuildings, of which only the walls often remain. To the north are the monks' cells, with their ^15th-century Gothic doors and windows. To the northeast are the remains of two chapels that were once part of a larger church that no longer exists: the larger dates from 1814, while the smaller probably dates from the ^11th century. On the south side, ^18th-century buildings were restored in 2005.