Panagia tou Araka Church
UNESCO-listed Troodos church of 1192 holding the island's finest late Comnenian wall paintings.
Panagia tou Araka stands among orchards between the Pitsilia villages of Lagoudera and Saranti, high on the northern slopes of the Troodos range. Built in the second half of the twelfth century as the church of a small monastery, it is a single-aisled domed building later enclosed by a steep timber roof with flat hooked tiles, the form that gives the painted churches of Troodos their distinctive silhouette. It was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985 as part of the Painted Churches in the Troodos Region.
The interior carries an almost complete programme of wall paintings, dated by an inscription on the north lintel to December 1192 and signed by the monk Theodoros Apsevdis. They are among the best preserved examples of late Comnenian painting anywhere, and their style links Cyprus to workshops active across Greece, the Balkans and Kyivan Rus. The dome holds a Christ Pantokrator surrounded by prophets, with the Virgin Arakiotissa and a cycle of feast scenes on the walls below.
Highlights
- Complete fresco cycle of 1192 signed by the monk Theodoros Apsevdis
- Christ Pantokrator in the dome ringed by twelve prophets
- UNESCO World Heritage listing among the Painted Churches of Troodos
- Timber-roofed mountain church set in orchards above Lagoudera
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