St. John's Cathedral — Local services in Nicosia

A few days ago I visited this quaint little church of St. John in Nicosia. A little unassuming from the outside, but beautifully decorated from the inside.

But be aware of the custodian, a chainsmoking man dressed in all black. He stormed in after we had been inside for a few minutes and started shouting at us for taking pictures. Which we had not. He would hear none of it. His anger focused on my 11-year-old son. The custodian shouted at him that taking pictures was forbidden, which we knew, we had read the signs. But he had seen him do it and demanded his phone. My son answered politely, in his best English (not his mother tongue), "I did not take any pictures, sir". The man became even more angry. All the visitors needed to show their phones and also the voluntary contribution to the church was now demanded of everyone by him at high tone. I calmly showed him my son's phone, opened the camera and showed him the last picture taken. It was an outdoor picture, nothing to do with his church. But no apology came however on his own false accusation. We needed to pay! After this statement, he started a loud conversation on his phone while walking back and forth through the little church, ignoring us.

All in all a very strange experience. Very impolite and even in a church as well of all places. So please do visit the church, it is beautiful, but beware of the...

St John's Cathedral (Agios Ionnis), compared with the great cathedrals of Europe, is tiny. Its interior, however, is no less magnificent. It was built by Archbishop Nikiforos in 1662, on the site of the former Lusignan Benedictine Abbey of Saint John of Bibi (St John the Evangelist). "Bibi" is an abbreviation of the Arabic word "habibi", which means “beloved” and refers to Saint John as the beloved student of Christ. When the Benedictine Order left the island in 1426, as a result of the Mamluk raids, the monastery passed into Orthodox hands, and was dedicated to St John the Theologian, while remaining a monastery. Although the church is small compared with the other churches in Nicosia, It is the official state church. There is an ornate throne for the archbishop, complete with a magnificent Byzantine double-headed eagle. There are also places for the President of the Republic of Cyprus and the Greek Ambassador. The coronation of new Archbishops of Cyprus...

What we saw in exactly 2 minutes in the church was beautiful. It is a pity, however, that they employ an absolute j* to let in visitors, and in the course of barely 3 hours today he managed to repel us twice! We came some minutes before 11 and just dropped the money into the box, when he shouted us out, saying he was closing for "only 10 minutes". We had to leave, and when we returned about 2 pm he was sitting in the car opposite the open church doors, and again shouted at us that it was closed and will open in "only 10 minutes". We are never going back there, for sure and they should find someone decent to work with people who want to visit this...