Steni () is a village in the

Paphos District The Paphos District, or simply Paphos (also Pafos), is one of the six districts of Cyprus and it is situated in the western part of Cyprus. Its main town and capital is Paphos. The entire district is controlled by the internationally recognis ...

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

, located 6 km southeast of

Polis Chrysochous Polis (or Polis Chrysochous; or Πόλις Χρυσοχούς, ) is a town at the north-west end of the island of Cyprus, at the centre of Chrysochous Bay, and on the edge of the Akamas peninsula nature reserve. Polis is served by the fishing ...

. In his book "Historic Cyprus" (second edition 1947), Rupert Gunnis (Inspector of Antiquities on the island at the time) writes: "About two miles from the village lie the ruins of the rich and important Monastery of Chrysolakhourna. The original thirteenth-century church consists of a central

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and two side aisles ending in a semicircular

apse In architecture, an apse (: apses; from Latin , 'arch, vault'; from Ancient Greek , , 'arch'; sometimes written apsis; : apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical Vault (architecture), vault or semi-dome, also known as an ' ...

. Over the west door was a small

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a sharp pointed arch at its top. This arch may or may not be a steep lancet arch (in which the compass centres for drawing the arch fall outside the opening). It acquired the "lancet" name from its rese ...

of two lights. In the sixteenth century, owing to an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

, the church was much remodelled. The west front was covered with a heavy

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient (typically Gothic) buildings, as a means of providing support to act ...

wall four feet thick at the base, which blocked the two entrances into the side aisle. The north wall was rebuilt, and the windows in the west and east end of the church were blocked up. All the paintings which remain are of the period of the rebuilding, save a figure of St.

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

in the west end, and even this has been chipped to form a key for the later series of frescoes. The monastic buildings are of considerable size, but are now much ruined. A number of Hellenic tombs surround the monastery, and the scattered marble columns and pillars suggest that there was perhaps a heathen temple here at some period. Just below the church is a tiny valley shaded by giant

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

s, and from a cleft in the rocks trickles a holy spring, which is frequented by those who suffer from ophthalmia. According to the local tradition, this monastery was once the resident of a

bishop A bishop is an ordained member of the clergy who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance and administration of di ...

, and it is possible that during the Latin domination (note: the

Kingdom of Cyprus The Kingdom of Cyprus (; ) was a medieval kingdom of the Crusader states that existed between 1192 and 1489. Initially ruled as an independent Christian kingdom, it was established by the French House of Lusignan after the Third Crusade. I ...

) the Orthodox Bishop of Paphos was forced to reside here. The last

Abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the head of an independent monastery for men in various Western Christian traditions. The name is derived from ''abba'', the Aramaic form of the Hebrew ''ab'', and means "father". The female equivale ...

is said to have been hanged by the Turks in 1821. Near Steni are the Turkish

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

s of St. Isidoros (note: Ayios Isidhoros, Paphos) and Myrimikoph; each still contains the ruined mediaeval church dating from before the time of the Turkish conquest."

References

{{Paphos District Communities in Paphos District