Underground Churches in Frankish Famagusta, Cyprus

Abstract

This paper examines a unique group of four crusader-period underground churches in Famagusta. The dedication, dating, and religious significance of these shrines are discussed in a regional context, using historical and archaeological sources. Two extramural churches attracted veneration from Latin and Greek communities: St. Mary de la Cava was a pilgrimage site managed by Greeks from Sinai, while the second grotto was originally a Latin edifice with a well providing holy water (agiasma). Inside the walls, an underground church, perhaps owned by the Melkites, had two altars and entrances, suggesting that it was possibly a pilgrimage shrine venerated by two religious communities. The fourth church, dedicated perhaps to the Nativity, is half built, half cut into the rock in a manner resembling the grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Although the preserved shrines cannot be identified with certainty, this study indicates that they were important religious centers, which developed together with the growing Latin-ruled metropolis and had devotional, architectural, and institutional links with other pilgrimage shrines in Cyprus and the Levantine mainland.