St Barnabas Monastery

Today was a long and eventful cultural day, which requires several contributions. But one by one.

First we visited the Monastery of St. Barnabas. Barnabas was one of the apostles of early Christianity and the national saint of Cyprus. The monastery named after him and his tomb are located near Famagusta.

The monastery is now an icon exhibition. On the one hand, icons were intended to convey the biblical stories to believers, some of whom could not read. On the other hand, the idea was that by looking at the icons one would develop feelings of love for the saints. It's hard for me to imagine the latter, given the old men looking sad, but as we all know, tastes differ.

Some saints have quite interesting stories. For example, if you are faced with an important decision, you can visit the image of Christ Pantocrator. If he smiles at you, it means “yes”. By the way, he smiled at me.

Then there is St. Mamas, the patron saint of tax evaders. According to a legend, he had to go to the governor because of non-payment of a tax. On the way there he observed a lion attacking a lamb. He saved the lamb and rode into the city on the lion with him in his arms. He was then granted tax exemption by the governor for the rest of his life.