St Nicholas of the Cats, the cats' monastery

Some monasteries are visited for their frescoes and others for their history. St Nicholas of the Cats is visited, let’s be honest, for the cats. Behind the anecdote, though, is a monastery the local guide counts among the oldest in Cyprus, in a spot between the salt lake and the sea that I find one of the loveliest on the Akrotiri peninsula.

Where it is

The monastery sits south-west of Akrotiri salt lake, at the southern tip of the island, roughly 10 km south of the town centre of Limassol in a straight line. OpenStreetMap places it inside the Akrotiri British Sovereign Base Area, so the usual base rule applies, no photos of military installations. The wider area is covered in Akrotiri peninsula.

A long, up-and-down history

The Base Areas Administration, in its overview of the peninsula’s archaeology, dates the monastery to the early Byzantine period. Tradition goes further back and credits its founding to Saint Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, in the 4th century.

The All About Limassol guide, which runs under the auspices of Amathounta municipality and which I treat as a secondary source, fills in the rest. The monastery is thought to have sheltered monks persecuted during Iconoclasm, and its 14th-century men’s monastery was destroyed by a great earthquake in the 16th century, rebuilt and used until 1570, when the Ottomans arrived. It was rebuilt again in the 18th century and then lay abandoned for a hundred years. In 1983 it came back to life as a convent, and today a handful of nuns live there, caring for the cats and painting icons.

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The legend of the cats

Here’s where the name comes from. According to the tradition recorded by the guide and by the Limassol Chamber, Saint Helena left a fragment of the True Cross at the monastery and also brought hundreds of cats to rid the area of venomous snakes that had spread after a terrible drought. Another version says it was Constantine who asked the governor Kalokeros for help, and that he brought a thousand cats and set the monks to look after them.

I won’t sell you the legend as history, because it isn’t. But seeing the cats around the courtyard, like the one in a photo on this page, does explain why the story has lasted so long.

How to behave

It’s a working convent, not a museum. I’d dress modestly, with shoulders and knees covered, speak quietly and not take photos where the nuns ask you not to. And I wouldn’t feed the cats myself, since the nuns are the ones who care for them. No official source I can cite lists hours or a price, so go at a sensible morning hour and accept it if you can’t go in that day.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in St Nicholas of the Cats and pick one that fits your day.

Combining it

The monastery is about 3 km from the middle of Akrotiri salt lake and roughly the same from Lady’s Mile beach. By car, all three fit into a morning from Limassol. If monasteries interest you, the island’s best are in monasteries in Cyprus.

Where the bus does not go, a car does: compare car hire in Limassol before you arrive rather than at the desk.

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