In the Karpas peninsula, at Rizokarpaso (Famagusta district). The church was perhaps the seat of the local bishopric after the abandonment of coastal Carpasia following the Arab raids [Papacostas (1995) Gazetteer 4].
Description: The domed pier cross-in-square structure with three semi-circular apses was built in ashlar masonry (although now whitewashed, the masonry is visible on late 19th-century images). Large blind arches mark the internal articulation on the façades, while a continuous string course encircles the building halfway up the façades (surviving in good condition mainly on the north façade) except from the main apse where it runs higher up, and on which windows and niches sit. The apses have three windows each, flanked by niches [cf. Peristerona] under ornamental moulding. The dome originally had eight windows, which are now mostly walled.
Dating: A likely 11th / early 12th-century date may be proposed on account of the architecture [Papacostas (1995) 27-28].
Later additions / alterations: The west wall was demolished when the present western domed extension was erected, and the south apse was largely removed when a bell tower was built in its place in the 19th century [Jeffery (1918) 253; see also Gunnis (1936) 411]. A new window was opened below the walled windows of the main apse.
Early literature: Drummond (1750) speaks of a ‘new church, built after the mean vulgar form’, while Duthoit in 1865 notes that this is one of the most beautiful Greek churches he had seen in Cyprus. Enlart saw Romanesque influence in the decorative string course surrounding the arches of the apse windows [Cobham (1908) 303; Bonato (2001) 232; Enlart/Hunt (1987) 309].
Views: Severis (2000) 162 [1878 watercolour by Hugh Sinclair showing bell tower and western extension already in place]; Marangou and Malecos (n.d.) pl. 69b [the façades were not plastered and the original apse windows had not been walled yet].