St John's Cathedral, the archbishopric's surprise

St John’s is the smallest church you’ll ever meet with the title of cathedral, and one of the most striking to walk into. It sits at the heart of the archbishopric in Nicosia. Its story and the details worth looking out for come from the municipality and the Nicosia Tourism Board.

A Benedictine chapel rebuilt in 1662

In the 14th century this plot held the chapel of a Benedictine abbey dedicated to St John the Evangelist. Archbishop Nikiforos rebuilt it from its foundations in 1662 and dedicated it to St John the Theologian. It’s a single-nave church with a barrel vault, buttresses outside and a portico to the west, in what the municipality calls Franco-Byzantine style.

The plain exterior has a reason. The municipality explains that it was deliberate, because Ottoman rule demanded Christian churches without display. That’s why from the square it looks unremarkable.

The interior you don’t expect

Inside, everything changes. The carved wood of the iconostasis and fittings is covered in gold leaf, in the best tradition of 18th-century Cypriot woodcarvers, and crystal chandeliers fill it with light. The four large icons are by the Cretan master John Kornaris and were painted between 1795 and 1797.

The walls are covered in 18th-century paintings of Bible scenes and one I find the most interesting of all, the discovery of St Barnabas’s tomb near Salamis. It’s the Church of Cyprus telling its own story in its own cathedral.

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The archbishopric around it

The cathedral isn’t on its own. On one side is the old Archbishop’s Palace, from the 18th century, which now houses the Folk Art Museum and the museum of the national struggle, and on the other the new neo-Byzantine palace with the Byzantine Museum in Nicosia. The whole complex is covered in the Archbishop’s Palace in Nicosia.

Is it still the cathedral?

The Nicosia Tourism Board says St John’s was the city’s main cathedral in Ottoman times, a stronghold of the Church of Cyprus that even took on administrative and political roles, and that the belfry was added centuries later in defiance of the Ottoman ban on church bells. It also explains the popular nickname «St John Pipis», which it links to the Arabic word for «the favourite», as in the beloved disciple. The same board notes that it served as the city’s cathedral until recently and still hosts the archbishopric’s major ceremonies, because since 2021 Nicosia has had a new cathedral, the Apostle Barnabas, beside the Archbishop’s Palace.

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Visiting

It’s a working church, and I don’t have visiting hours I can cite. I’d go mid-morning on a weekday, outside service times, with shoulders and knees covered, and combine it with the Byzantine Museum in one visit. If you want more wall painting afterwards, the painted churches of Troodos are the next step. If you’d rather stay in town, the House of Hadjigeorgakis Kornesios is a few minutes away.

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