Browse Items (1023 total)

Tradition requires that gifts be exchanged during the Christmas period. Santa Claus brings the gifts on the eve of New Year. St. Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea had his name associated with carols, the gifts and the vassilopitta (type of cake),…

The icon of the Virgin Hodegetria comes from the Church and Monastery of St. Savva near Prastio village in Paphos. According to an inscription over the west door, the church was re-built in 1501 and again restored during the first half of the 18th…

Virgin Mary among Archangels Michael and Gabriel.

The wall paintings for this Christmas issue emanate from the Church of the Holy Cross of Agiasmati in the Troodos hills near the village of Platanistasa. Dedicatory inscriptions in the church inform us that it was built by donation of the chief…

Virgin Mary and Elizabeth (St. John Monastery Lampadistis)

The Church of the Virgin Mary of Podithou, whence this wall painting derives, is in the village of Galata and dates from 1502 A.D. The Church belonged to a monastery. When the Russian traveller Basil Basky visited the Church in 1735 the monastery was…

Virgin Mary

An old legend ascribes the founding of the monastery to an aged hermit called Neophytus. Expelled from Syria in the 12th Century, he came to Cyprus with his faithful disciple Ignatius and built a cell on mount Aoos. They sought and obtained Royal…

The fresco depicted on this stamp is from the Church of the Holy Cross in the village of Pelendri. The original church dates from the 12th century with extensions to the North added in the 14th century and to the South most likely in the 16th…

Volleyball Centenary.