Akdoğan (Lysi)
Akdoğan
is the liveliest of the villages in the Mesarya
plain of the Famagusta district. In the centre of
the village is a wonderfully exuberant late 19th century Orthodox church,
covered in a thick layer of Gothic decoration copied from the great medieval
cathedrals of Famagusta and Nicosia.
The diminutive 14th century
shrine of Ayios Ephimianos, 2 km southwest of the village, enjoys a lonely
position, shaded by a clump of eucalyptus just above a water course. West of the
village, 2 km along the tarmac road to Yiğitler village, there is a distinctive
hillock capped with rounded boulders. Halfway down its southern face is an
Archaic nympheum, a small natural cave that archaeologists found filled with
votive statuettes. It has been romantically identified as the grotto of the
Cypriot sibyl, whose holiness is immeasurably increased by approaching it along
the lay line taken from the near sacred site of Ayios Ephinanios. From this
approach, the silhouette of the sibyl's hill hovers as a visual echo of the Five
Finger Mountains on the northern horizon.
About 4 km further west along
this road, the other side of Yiğitler, is the hamlet of Erdemli, the site of
Richard the Lion Heart’s victory over Isaac Comnenus. The ruinous church and
the buildings on the northern edge are the remains of an 18th century rebuilding
of the ancient monastery of St Spyridon. This very Cypriot saint, a shepherd
turned local bishop and bulwark of Orthodoxy in the 4th century, lay buried here
for a few centuries before being removed to Constantinople. Since the 15th
century he has rested on the island of Corfu, of which he is the patron saint.
References
-
Rogerson, B., (1994),
Cyprus, Cadogan.
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