Notre Dame de Tyre, Nicosia, Cyprus

Notre Dame de Tyre is a 14th-century monastery in Nicosia. It is believed that the original church, known as the Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of Tyre, was founded in the 13th century as a principal convent following the fall of Jerusalem. In 1308, the Lusignan king, Henry II of Jerusalem, repaired the church after it was destroyed by an earthquake. As many of the nuns were Armenian in origin, it came under the Armenian Church before 1504.

In 1570, following the capture of Nicosia by the Ottomans, the keeping of the Paphos Gate, the church, and the surrounding area were handed over to the Armenians by Sultan Selim II.

The Armenian Prelature of Cyprus was housed next to the church, until the 1963-1964 intercommunal troubles, when it was taken over by extremist Turkish-Cypriots. In 1920 the descendants of Artin Melikian restored the church, and built the Melikian Elementary School on the grounds of the church. In 1938, the Ouzounian Elementary School was established by Dikran Ouzounian. There was also a kindergarten, originally built in 1902 and called Shoushanian.

In 1963, part of Nicosia was taken over by Turkish-Cypriot extremists, including the church complex. The church was trashed and illegal Turkish settlers moved in, causing further damage. In 2007, the area was sealed off and architects, historians and a committee met with the Armenian Ethnarchy to discuss renovation and refurbishment.

The existing building is gothic in style and consists of a square nave, with a semi-octagonal apse, cross vaults an arch covering the western part, a bell tower (built in 1860) and convent buildings to the north of the church. To the east of the nunnery buildings is the sarcophagus of Lady Dampierre, an Abbess of the nunnery. On the church floor are tombstones dating from the 14th and 15th centuries.

References:

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User Reviews

mohsen bahadori (2 years ago)
A good place to visit in old part of Nicosia

Erkan Ilpars (3 years ago)
Ermini kilisesi 17 yüzyılda luziryan dönemine ait bir kilisedir.osmanli döneminde sarı selim padişah Ermeni kralının yardımları karşılığında bu kiliseyi vermiştir.gotik ve Katolik bir kilise olup . arabahmet bölgesi içerisinde yer almaktadır..1974 yılında Kıbrıs Barış gücü tarafından korumaya alınmıştır .. yaklaşık 10 sene önce restore edilerek Kıbrıs halkına kazandırılmıştır.. şuanda bünyesinde DAU (Doğu Akdeniz üniversitesi) yüksek lisans ve Master öğrencilerine olanak sağlamıştır.

Ian Fergusson-Sharp (4 years ago)
This 13th century Armenian monastery is located on the edge of the Arabahmet area. It is believed that the original church, known as the Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of Tyre, was founded as a principal convent for the women of Cyprus following the fall of Jerusalem and the expulsion of all religious orders from the city in the 8th Century. When the city was divided in 1963, the church found itself right on the border between north and south, and it was fairly comprehensively trashed. In more recent years, squatters moved in, causing further damage. These however,were removed in readiness for the extensive refurbishment of building. In July 2012, renovation of the main church buildings was completed. Work continues on surrounding buildings which will be used as a cultural and educational centre. Because of the on-going building work, the church is only occasionally opened.

Арцви Навасардян (4 years ago)
Ararat people history

Vincent Zeteliano (6 years ago)
It's closed. You can't go into it. The enterance is blocked by garbage and chairs. The surrounding area is probably the most dilapidated part of Northern Cyprus.

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Quimper Cathedral

From 1239, Raynaud, the Bishop of Quimper, decided on the building of a new chancel destined to replace that of the Romanesque era. He therefore started, in the far west, the construction of a great Gothic cathedral which would inspire cathedral reconstructions in the Ile de France and would in turn become a place of experimentation from where would later appear ideas adopted by the whole of lower Brittany. The date of 1239 marks the Bishop’s decision and does not imply an immediate start to construction. Observation of the pillar profiles, their bases, the canopies, the fitting of the ribbed vaults of the ambulatory or the alignment of the bays leads us to believe, however, that the construction was spread out over time.

The four circular pillars mark the start of the building site, but the four following adopt a lozenge-shaped layout which could indicate a change of project manager. The clumsiness of the vaulted archways of the north ambulatory, the start of the ribbed vaults at the height of the south ambulatory or the choice of the vaults descending in spoke-form from the semi-circle which allows the connection of the axis chapel to the choir – despite the manifest problems of alignment – conveys the hesitancy and diverse influences in the first phase of works which spread out until the start of the 14th century.

At the same time as this facade was built (to which were added the north and south gates) the building of the nave started in the east and would finish by 1460. The nave is made up of six bays with one at the level of the facade towers and flanked by double aisles – one wide and one narrow (split into side chapels) – in an extension of the choir arrangements.

The choir presents four right-hand bays with ambulatory and side chapels. It is extended towards the east of 3-sided chevet which opens onto a semi-circle composed of five chapels and an apsidal chapel of two bays and a flat chevet consecrated to Our Lady.

The three-level elevation with arches, triforium and galleries seems more uniform and expresses anglo-Norman influence in the thickness of the walls (Norman passageway at the gallery level) or the decorative style (heavy mouldings, decorative frieze under the triforium). This building site would have to have been overseen in one shot. Undoubtedly interrupted by the war of Succession (1341-1364) it draws to a close with the building of the lierne vaults (1410) and the fitting of stained-glass windows. Bishop Bertrand de Rosmadec and Duke Jean V, whose coat of arms would decorate these vaults, finished the chancel before starting on the building of the facade and the nave.

Isolated from its environment in the 19th century, the cathedral was – on the contrary – originally very linked to its surroundings. Its site and the orientation of the facade determined traffic flow in the town. Its positioning close to the south walls resulted in particuliarities such as the transfer of the side gates on to the north and south facades of the towers: the southern portal of Saint Catherine served the bishop’s gate and the hospital located on the left bank (the current Préfecture) and the north gate was the baptismal porch – a true parish porch with its benches and alcoves for the Apostles’ statues turned towards the town, completed by an ossuary (1514).

The west porch finds its natural place between the two towers. The entire aesthetic of these three gates springs from the Flamboyant era: trefoil, curly kale, finials, large gables which cut into the mouldings and balustrades. Pinnacles and recesses embellish the buttresses whilst an entire bestiary appears: monsters, dogs, mysterious figures, gargoyles, and with them a whole imaginary world promoting a religious and political programme. Even though most of the saints statues have disappeared an armorial survives which makes the doors of the cathedral one of the most beautiful heraldic pages imaginable: ducal ermine, the Montfort lion, Duchess Jeanne of France’s coat of arms side by side with the arms of the Cornouaille barons with their helmets and crests. One can imagine the impact of this sculpted decor with the colour and gilding which originally completed it.

At the start of the 16th century the construction of the spires was being prepared when building was interrupted, undoubtedly for financial reasons. Small conical roofs were therefore placed on top of the towers. The following centuries were essentially devoted to putting furnishings in place (funeral monuments, altars, statues, organs, pulpit). Note the fire which destroyed the spire of the transept cross in 1620 as well as the ransacking of the cathedral in 1793 when nearly all the furnishings disappeared in a « bonfire of the saints ».

The 19th century would therefore inherit an almost finished but mutilated building and would devote itself to its renovation according to the tastes and theories of the day.

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