Another view of the monastery

The church

The monastery is surrounded by fresh air ; one well inside the walls and another outside supply healthy and fresh water . It is , it is true , located in a remote spot , but through its wide - spread fame the ungodly Moslems do not cease to call on the monks in order to frighten them . In the main aisle of the church , a small icon of the miraculous Mother of God encrusted with gold and silver is to be seen . This icon portrays the Virgin without her child with her hands raised in prayer - in the same way as I would draw her . '

Both in the period of Turkish rule and later , the monastery was well - known as a centre of the national intellectual life of the Cypriots . Just as elsewhere in the Christian world , a school was opened there in the 19th. century . Cyprus's folk medicine was practised mainly by the monk physicians Metrophanes and Charitos from Machairas . Metrophanes is known as the author of an 'Iatrosophion' , that is to say a work on the theory of medicine . In addition , especially in the recent past , the monastery was a centre for the production of liturgical books . Many of the works which came into being here are kept in the monastery library and the treasury .

The frescoes in the main part of the church were painted by Charalambos and Panagiotis Voulgaris from Amaliada in Greece in 1993 ; the mosaics on the right and left of the main portal of the church are by the contemporary Cypriot artist Arestis Stasis .