Abstract
The holiness of sacred spaces is expressed through the creative synthesis and performance of different symbolic or iconic elements. This article concentrates on the medieval church of Ayios Iakovos in Nicosia, Cyprus. Dedicated to Saint James the Persian, the church became, by the 1600s, a shared shrine for Christians of different denominations (Orthodox, Maronites, and Latins) and Muslims. The aim of this article is to investigate in an interdisciplinary way the formation, adaptation, and negotiation of insular religious identities in relation to Ayios Iakovos’ hierotopy, official and popular religious practices, and the appropriation of Byzantine culture. The components in the creation of this sacred space reflect long-term contact between Cyprus and Greater Syria, constructing an inclusive religious environment with its own insular characteristics. It will be argued that these characteristics were shaped by global, regional, and local developments, including trade, pilgrimage, war, and environmental changes. Being in dialogue with recent scholarship on mixed sacred sites, this case study stresses the importance of interconnectivity and mobility in the creation of shared places of worship. It also shows that phenomena of religious co-existence and syncretism do not always result in homogenisation but maintain distinct group identities.
Highlights
Iakovos through the prism of insularity enables us to evaluate the dynamics of human mobility and interconnectivity in the creation of a mixed centre of worship, echoing recent research on shared sacred spaces of the Mediterranean (Bowman 2012; Albera and Couroucli 2012; Barkan and Barkey 2014; Couroucli 2014, pp. 379–82)
Having surveyed the architecture and history of Ayios Iakovos, it is the moment to focus on the church as hieros topos, a sacred space consisting of different iconic elements
Given the theological symbolism of the cypress and other trees/plants in Saint James’ liturgical and hagiographical dossier, we may argue that the cypress in Ayios Iakovos was a visible, tangible, and concrete manifestation of the saint itself, a truly iconic element of his real presence in Nicosia
Summary
In the early 1900s, people told a curious story about the great cypress growing near the small church of Ayios Iakovos at Nicosia (see Figure 1). Magda Ohnefalsch-Richter, who journeyed around Cyprus between 1894 and 1912, was informed by the area’s Orthodox inhabitants that the cypress “is regarded as the most ancient [tree] of the island”. She was amazed to learn that the tree “is guarded by a big snake that hides during the day and appears only at night”. She attempted to see the serpent with her own eyes, she was unsuccessful. Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
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