Located in the village of Ayia Napa, the monastery of the same name was built in the 15th century. It is believed that it was built after an ancient icon of the Virgin Mary was found in a forest cave in that place. The icon was probably hidden there back in the 8th century, when Byzantium began a period of iconoclasm. The found shrine was called "Madonna of the Forest", and later it was christened Aia Napa, which means "Blessed of the Forest". It was on the site of that cave that the Venetians erected a monastery, around which the settlement was gradually built.
After the Ottomans seized power on the island, the monastery continued to operate, but was turned into a men's monastery. But in the middle of the eighteenth century it was abandoned and deserted. It was not until 1950 that the Cypriot authorities undertook its reconstruction.
At the moment the monastery is not active. Services are held in a small church built next to it in 1994. However, there you can see a beautiful small courtyard with a marble fountain built in honour of a Venetian noblewoman whose grave is next to it. As the story goes, the girl fell in love with an ordinary young man from a poor family. Her parents, whose money was used to build the monastery, were, of course, against their marriage, so the unhappy lover decided to become a nun. According to legend, it was she who planted a tree on the bank of a small pond near the monastery, which is still growing there today. There are also several beautiful chapels on the territory of the monastery complex.
Every year in September, a cultural and religious festival is held in the monastery, during which, on 8 September, the temple holiday of Ayia Napa, the Day of the Virgin Mary, is also celebrated.
