Monastery Kantaras

This historic monastery is built on the southern slopes of the Pentadaktylos mountain range, at an altitude of 550 metres and at a short distance from the medieval castle of the same name. It is world-renowned in the ecclesiastical history of Cyprus as it is inextricably connected with the martyrdom of the 13 Holy Martyr monks, who were put to death in 1231 by the authorities of the Latins because they refused to change their Orthodox doctrine. The church was radically renovated in 1777 by Archbishop Chrysanthos, but after the Turkish invasion of 1974 the monastery was savagely looted by antiquities smugglers and has since been used by the occupation authorities as a storage space.