Images: Whatsoncyprus; Away with Joanna
Clavis number: ECMA 169
Other descriptors: none
Location: Famagusta, near Salamis
Category: Frescoes
Related literature: Acts of Bartholomew and Barnabas, Encomium on Barnabas by Alexander Monachus
Featured characters and locations: Anthemios (bishop of Salamis), Barnabas, Cyprus, Zeno (emperor).
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: paint on plaster
Size: unspecified
Images (left to right; click to enlarge): Barnabas appears to Archbishop Anthemios, the discovery of the saint’s relics, the presentation of the Gospel of Matthew found with Barnabas’s body to Zeno, the declaration of Cyprus as an autonomous church with its own patriarch.
Date: the site was founded in the late fifth century but the date of the frescoes is not known.
Provenance: the frescoes are located in the church of the former Ayios Barnabas (Monastery of Barnabas), now an icon museum. Next to the building is the monastery itself and a mausoleum said to be built on the location of the discovery of Barnabas’s body (and visitors can go into the mausoleum, descend a small flight of stairs, and see the apostle’s coffin. The frescoes were painted by Stefan and Barnabas Khariton.
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The Acts of Barnabas is the earliest account of the apostle’s death and internment. The end of the text reports that his remains were buried in a cavern with a copy of the Gospel of Matthew that Barnabas carried with him. The Encomium on Barnabas by Alexander Monachus continues the story (subsequently abbreviated in the Acts of Bartholomew and Barnabas), reporting that Barnabas appeared to Anthemios, the bishop of Salamis, revealing to him the location of his remains. Anthemios finds the coffin, the body, and the gospel. He gives the gospel to the Emperor Zeno, who commands Anthemios to build a church for Barnabas.
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Huffman, Joseph P. “The Donation of Zeno: St Barnabas and the Origins of the Cypriot Archbishops’ Regalia Privileges.” Church History 84.4 (2015): 713–45. Also published in modified form as The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 66.2 (2015): 235–60 (esp. 238–39, 246–47).
Loverance, Rowena K. “Barnabas, Monastery of S.” Page 214 in The Oxford Dictionary of Late Antiquity. Edited by Oliver Nicholson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2018 (p. 214).
Megaw, A. H. S. “Byzantine Architecture and Decoration in Cyprus: Metropolitan or Provincial?” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 28 (1974): 57–88.
Mouriki, Doula. “The Cult of Cypriot Saints in Medieval Cyprus as Attested by Church Decorations and Icon Painting.” Pages 237–77 in ‘The Sweet Land of Cyprus’: Papers Given at the Twenty-fifth Jubilee Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Birmingham, England (March 1991). Edited by A. A. M. Bryer and G. S. Georghallides. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre, 1993.
Papacostas, Tassos. “Byzantine Nicosia, 650–1191.” Pages 79–109 in Historic Nicosia. Edited by Demetrios Michaelides. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre, 2012.
Sophocleous, Sophocles. Icônes de Chypre: diocèse de Limassol, 12e–16e siècle. Nicosia: Centre du patrimoine culturel, 2006 (pp. 75, 409).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
“Monastery of Saint Barnabas.” Wikipedia.
“Saint Barnabas Monastery Famagusta Cyprus–Archeological and Icon Museum.” Cyprus Insight.
“St Barnabas Monastery.” Cyprus for Travellers.
“St Barnabas’ Monastery and Icon Museum.” Whatson-Northcyprus.
Entry created by Tony Burke, York University, 25 June 2024.