Antiphonitis

Antiphonitis
Antiphonitis is located in Cyprus
Antiphonitis
Antiphonitis
Location in Cyprus
Coordinates: 35°19′38.57″N 33°37′9.24″E / 35.3273806°N 33.6192333°E / 35.3273806; 33.6192333
Country Cyprus
 • DistrictKyrenia District
Country (controlled by) Northern Cyprus
 • DistrictGirne District
Population
 (2011)[1]
 • Total868
Time zoneUTC+2 (EET)
 • Summer (DST)UTC+3 (EEST)
Church of Christ Antiphonitis, general view from the south east, as the monument stood in 1973.
Church of Christ Antiphonitis, interior, frescoes on walls and pillars, looking east.
Church of Christ Antiphonitis, interior of the dome.
Church of Christ Antiphonitis, 2014.

Antiphonitis – more correctly the Church of Christ Antiphonitis (Χριστός Ἀντιφωνητής) – is a domed church in Cyprus, in Kyrenia District, located in the mountains near the village of Kalograia. It is reached from the network of tracks and small roads in the area of the Herbarium and Agios Amvrosios. It is under the de facto control of Northern Cyprus.

The name Christ Antiphonitis means "Christ who responds" and a number of Greek churches are so designated. The epithet appears to derive from a miraculous icon of some kind which responded to prayers, but no account of this icon in Cyprus is known. The name is testified in the late medieval period. Writing in the sixteenth century, Stefano Lusignan in his Description de toute l'isle de Cypre (Paris, 1580) recalls that Antifoniti was a fief belonging to his family, that his maternal grandmother Isabella Perez Fabricius founded the monastery of Antifonite and that his brother John (who had become a monk under the name Hilarion) died there.[2]

Church of Christ Antiphonitis, interior looking south east, as the monument stood in 1973
  1. ^ KKTC 2011 Nüfus ve Konut Sayımı [TRNC 2011 Population and Housing Census] (PDF), TRNC State Planning Organization, 6 August 2013, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-06
  2. ^ Enlart, Camille, and David Hunt, Gothic art and the Renaissance in Cyprus (London: Trigraph in association with the A.G. Leventis Foundation, 1987): 207.