Archangelos Michael, the painted gem of Pedoulas

In Pedoulas the church of Archangelos Michael is the village’s pride, and you see why as soon as you step in. It’s small, wooden-roofed and painted from top to bottom with a scheme completed in a single year. To tell its story I draw on UNESCO, on the entry the mountains’ development company gives it and on the opening times the Nicosia Tourism Board publishes.

A church with a date and a name

The company calls it the crown jewel of the community. It was built and decorated in 1474, with a donation from the priest Vasilios Chamados. Such a precise date is possible thanks to the dedicatory inscription above the north entrance, which comes with a painting of the priest himself with his wife and two daughters, offering the Archangel Michael a model of the church. It’s one of those details that make the painted churches of Troodos more than art, because they put a face to the people who paid for them.

The iconostasis

The other treasure is the templon, the wooden iconostasis, also from 1474, which the company considers one of the best preserved of its kind. Around it, Byzantine art envelops the visitor, in the company’s own words. I haven’t found a scene-by-scene description of the murals in the official sources, so I’ll stick to what’s documented.

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Hours and visiting

It’s one of the few churches in the group with simple hours, every day from 10:30 to 17:00, according to the company. Like the other nine, it’s free to visit, according to UNESCO, and still a working church, so go in suitably dressed and quietly.

Close by is the Pedoulas Byzantine Museum, with icons and relics spanning the 13th to the 20th centuries. The Nicosia Tourism Board gives its hours as 10:00 to 16:20 every day except Monday, and its phone number is +357 22 953 636. The village also has a folk art museum.

The village around it

Pedoulas sits at 1,100 metres among pines and cherry trees, and after the Second World War it got ahead of almost everyone with mountain tourism. By car, the rest of the Marathasa valley is a short drive, with Panagia tou Moutoulla and the monastery of Agios Ioannis Lampadistis.

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The museum that goes with it

The company credits the late Andreas Ellinas with founding the Pedoulas Byzantine Museum and explains that, besides icons and relics from the 13th to the 20th centuries, it shows pieces and icons from the church of Timios Stavros, the village’s main church. Seeing it before you step into Archangelos Michael helps you understand what you’ll find inside.

Where it fits in a day

Given its hours, I’d save it for the last part of the day. I’d open with Lampadistis, then stop at Moutoullas and wind up in Pedoulas, going into the museum first, as it shuts at 16:20, and the church afterwards. Even better if you sleep in the village.

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