Asinou - Panagia Phorbiotissa

Interesting facts

The church was paid for by the magistros Nikephoros Ischyrios, a Byzantine official who later became a monk under the name Nikolaos.

The earliest paintings of 1105/06 closely reflect the art of Constantinople, and the narthex's two semicircular apses follow a Constantinopolitan building tradition.

In the 14th century the apse collapsed and was rebuilt, buttresses were added outside, and a flying buttress was later set against the north wall.

The narthex was repainted in 1332/33, and these murals show Frankish influence from the Lusignan kings who then ruled Cyprus.

Layers of painting continued to be added for five centuries, the latest dating from the early 1600s, under Ottoman rule.

In the apse scene of the Communion of the Apostles, Christ hands Saint John a golden vessel of wine.

When the apse dome was repainted in the 14th century, a Sacrifice of Isaac was added in the spandrel below the Virgin.

The name Asinou may come from a village called Asine, itself named after the ancient town of Asine in the Argolid in Greece.

The frescoes were cleaned in 1965–67 by a team from Dumbarton Oaks, the Harvard research centre in Washington.

Removing later piers in front of the apse in the 1950s revealed paintings that had been hidden behind them for centuries.

Why it is worth it

Panagia tis Asinou, also called Panagia Phorbiotissa, is a small church in the northern foothills of the Troodos mountains. It stands alone beside a stream a few kilometres south of the village of Nikitari. From outside it looks like a barn: a plain stone hall under a steep pitched roof of flat tiles, a protective shell typical of the Troodos churches. It was the main church of a monastery known as Moni Phorbion, founded around 1099 and abandoned in the eighteenth century, and it is the only building of the monastery that survives. Local tradition links the name Phorbiotissa to the spurge (euphorbia) that grows thickly around it.

Asinou's distinction among the painted churches of the Troodos World Heritage Site, inscribed in 1985, is its date. A donor's inscription on the south wall says the church was painted in 1105/06, during the reign of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. Around two-thirds of that original decoration survives, which makes Asinou a key monument of early Komnenian painting. In the apse, Christ gives the apostles communion while Judas turns away. The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste fill a niche in the north wall, and the donor is shown in the court dress of the period, presenting the church to Christ and the Virgin. The narthex was added at the end of the twelfth century. Its Last Judgement shows the torments of the damned in vivid detail, and there is a rare image of Saint Anastasia the "Deliverer from Poison" holding a medicine jar. Parts of the nave were repainted in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, so you can compare two or three Byzantine styles on the same walls.

The present roof dates from 1959; until then the original timber structure, the same one shown in the donor's painting, was still in place. The church is in the care of the Department of Antiquities.

Getting there

The church is roughly 50 km by road from Nicosia, about an hour's drive, following signs for Nikitari and then Asinou. Most visitors fly into Larnaca International Airport (LCA) and drive via Nicosia. There is no practical public transport, so you will need a car.

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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