Holy Bishopric of Pafos

Byzantine Museum

THE MUSEUM AND ITS COLLECTIONS

The Byzantine Museum of the Bishopric of Pafos was created at the initiative of His Grace the Bishop of Pafos Chrysostomos and with the active aid of the Abbot of Chrysorroiatissa Dionysios. The Museum was initially housed in the house of Pilavakis in 25th March Street from 1983 to 1989. Since then it has been housed in the East wing of the Bishopric facing Agios Theodoros and Andreou Ioannou streets.

The aim of the Museum's creation is the saving, protection, promotion and scientific study of these inestimable treasures of Byzantine art which are scattered throughout the parishes of the Bishopric. The exhibition in a museum gives the opportunity to the visitor and to the scholar to know easily the Byzantine heritage of Pafos. The museum also has a role to play in education.

ICONS

The biggest and most remarkable collection of the Museum is that of the icons which are more than a hundred. The Museum houses the so far oldest known portable icon preserved in Cyprus. It is the icon of Saint Marina in the orans position, flanked by scenes of her martyrdom. The origin of this icon goes back to the period of iconoclastic quarrels when Cyprus suffered under the Arab condominium and it can be dated to the 7th or 8th century. The main collection of the other icons extends basically from the 12th to the 19th century and includes a considerable number of examples from every historical period. The majority of the oldest icons are of traditional Byzantine technical and aesthetical conception. A series of icons shows occidental influence mainly from the Gothic International and the Italian Renaissance styles, 15th and 16th centuries. The icons dating to the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries continue in principle the former Byzantine tradition of icon painting and occasionally show borrowings from Baroque and Rococo art.

WALL PAINTINGS

Wall paintings come from ruined churches. Their conservation in the Museum of the Bishopric was judged necessary so that these murals would not stay exposed to harmful climatic conditions on the walls of unroofed churches. The principal collection of such murals is dated to around 1100 and comes from the ruins of the Byzantine church of Saint Theodoros at Choulou. Another fragment of a wall painting of an unidentified saint comes from the church of the disappeared monastery of Chrysolakourna near Steni and dates to the 16th century.

WOOD CARVINGS

The examples of woodcarving exhibited in the Museum are not numerous. They are basically fragments of iconostases such as Sanctuary Doors, Crucifixions and Lypitera from the 14th to the 18th century, as well as one proskynitarion of the 19th century. Specimens of small-scale sculpture of the 18th and 19th centuries are various crosses for benediction and sanctification which constitute the central part of metal crosses decorated with enamel and precious stones.

METAL ART WORKS

The museum possesses a remarkable collection of ecclesiastical metal art works which cover a chronological and artistic spectrum of four centuries (17th - 20th). A principal position in this collection is held by the covers of old printed Gospels dating to 1604, 1745 and 1838, different mitres of the 18th and 19th century, a reliquary of 1850, a chalice and paten of 1796, a 19th century censer as well as sacerdotal belt clasps, pendent crosses, and crosses for benediction and sanctification. Many of these objects are ornamented with filigree, enamel, incisions and precious stones. A distinguished position among the bishop's staffs is held by that of the Metropolitan of Ephesos Meletios dating to 1764.