Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque, the former St Nicholas Cathedral

St Nicholas Cathedral, now Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque, dominates the main square of Famagusta (Ammochostos, Gazimağusa) in the north of Cyprus. Seeing it means passing a Green Line checkpoint, so read crossing to Northern Cyprus and the official warnings in Northern Cyprus first. Below is what the handful of serious sources say about it.

Gothic where you least expect it

Encyclopaedia Britannica lists the Gothic cathedrals of Nicosia and Famagusta among the finest things the Lusignans and Venetians left on the island, and the Nicosia one is now the Selimiye Mosque.

English Wikipedia dates the building work to 1298 to 1312 and the consecration to 1328. No official source I’ve read backs that up, so treat it as a rough guide. What’s beyond doubt is that it’s a Lusignan building, from the dynasty that ruled Cyprus from the end of the 12th century.

Where the kings of Jerusalem were crowned

The World Monuments Fund explains that Famagusta grew as a port after the fall of Acre in 1291, when many Christians arrived from the Holy Land, and that it came to rival Constantinople and Venice. On its main square, St Nicholas was the coronation church of the kings of Crusader Jerusalem, a title the kings of Cyprus kept. Across the square stand the remains of a Venetian palace.

For me that fact changes how you look at it. This wasn’t a provincial cathedral but the church where a monarchy with no kingdom left in the Holy Land carried on crowning itself.

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From cathedral to mosque

In August 1571, after a year under siege, the town passed into Ottoman hands, as the Union of Cyprus Municipalities records. The cathedral then became a mosque, and OpenStreetMap lists it today as Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque, with the name St Nicholas alongside. Hence the minaret rising beside a Gothic facade, the view everyone photographs.

The World Monuments Fund adds that the siege was followed by three centuries of neglect, earthquakes and floods, and that by the time the British arrived in 1878 much of the town lay in ruins. In 2008 and 2010 it put the walled town on its list of heritage at risk.

Before you go in

It’s a working mosque, not a museum, and I can’t find opening times or visiting rules in any citable source. I’d go in outside prayer times, keep my voice down and cover shoulders and knees. Othello Tower is about 300 m away and the Deryneia crossing about 7 km in a straight line, so I’d stay in Protaras and do it all in a day.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque on GetYourGuide.

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