Panagia Angeloktisti

The name means built by angels, and the church at Kiti is an eleventh-century building raised over the ruins of a fifth-century basilica whose apse was kept. In that apse is a mosaic of the Virgin standing with the Christ child between two archangels, made in the sixth century and one of a very small number of figural mosaics anywhere to survive the iconoclast destruction of the eighth and ninth centuries. The gold ground and the faces are largely original.

What you actually see

• The apse mosaic - a sixth-century Virgin between archangels, on gold ground.
• The surviving apse - the fifth-century basilica wall kept in the later church.
• The iconostasis - a carved screen in the main body of the church.
• The Latin chapel - a Gothic side chapel added in the fourteenth century.

When to go

Year round. The church closes for a long midday break and the mosaic is best seen in morning light. Sunday services fill the building.

Honest expectations

The mosaic is behind the altar screen and viewing is at a distance. Photography is restricted and often forbidden entirely. The village around has nothing else for visitors.

Nearby

Larnaca is eleven kilometres northeast, and the salt lake is between them.