Carmelite Church (St Mary of Carmel) / Church
Description
This 14th century church is of a very simple plan and design. It possesses a single nave divided into four bays and a triple-sided apse. On the north and south sides of the nave are two added, narrow side-chapels, which appear to create a short transept. The building once possessed rib-vaults with few embellishments, and was heavily buttressed. A broad window above the west door retains fragments of its original stone tracery: a trefoil and two quatrefoils inscribed in circles. Inside the church, some of its medieval wall paintings are still visible. Note on the south wall, the weathered depiction of Saint George slaying the dragon, and his incised and gilded halo. Although legibility today is greatly reduced, these paintings nonetheless represent a very rare surviving example of Medieval Latin art in the east.
It is believed that the Carmelites arrived in Famagusta shortly after 1311, a date which is preserved in a papal letter officially affording the Order permission to found a house here, as well as in several other cities in western Europe. It is also well documented that Peter Thomas, the Carmelite friar and titular Latin patriarch of Constantinople, arrived in Famagusta in the 1360s as papal legate. He had been sent to the East by the pope NAME OF POPE on a mission to work for Church union, to promote crusading efforts and to fight heresy. His time here was marked most profoundly by his clash with the Greek Orthodox community, which he had set out to unite with the Holy Roman Church and the doctrines of Catholicism.
By the time of his death in Famagusta in 1366, Peter Thomas was reputedly venerated by individuals from a multiplicity of rites and faiths, and had achieved near-saint status. As contemporary accounts inform us, he was buried, at his own request, under a stone slab at the entry to the choir of the present church. Here the occurrence of miracles was immediately reported, and his body was subsequently moved into the choir and re-interred under a more sumptuous tomb, thought to better suit the status of the saint. Although, Peter Thomas was never officially canonized, his feast day – 25th January – was permitted to the Carmelites in 1608.
In 1901, French architectural historian, Camille Enlart excavated at the site, hoping to unearth the remains of the saint’s tomb. Instead, he unearthed, among others, the tombstone of Guy Babin (d.1363) a nobleman in the entourage of Peter I. Guy’s tombstone was found shattered by the fall of the boss of the choir vault, which bore the same coat of arms as the incised effigial slab itself. The Babins’ patronage must, therefore, have been of paramount importance for the erection of the building. Furthermore, the arms of Archbishop Giovanni Conti (1312-1332), displayed on the boss of one of the nave vaults, has secured a date for the building during the aforementioned archbishop’s tenure at the see of Nicosia.
