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February 8, 2022

The Story of the Church of Saint Theodore the General in the Cypriot Village That Bears His Name


Agios Theodoros is a village in the Limassol District of Cyprus, in the region of Pitsilia, which is why it is usually referred to as Agios Theodoros Pitsilias. There we find a church dedicated to Saint Theodore that was built in 1977 on the spot where an older church dedicated to Saint Theodore once existed. The interior of the church is decorated with frescoes painted by Romanian iconographers.

After the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, an old woman named Theodora from Lapithos had settled in this village, together with the family of a teacher, Eutychios Gioutanis. Theodora managed to transfer from her currently occupied village, the icon of the Reception of Christ. The deeply religious Theodora, at night sometimes heard horse gallops and connected them with Saint Theodore, while other times she saw lights at the place where the church of the Saint was later built. One night she saw a vision with Saint Theodore that indicated to her the place where he wanted a church to be built, but also the type of trees and their number that would decorate the church surroundings. In particular, he asked that cypresses, pines and acacias be planted. This vision was the reason for the reconstruction of the Church of Saint Theodore in 1977.