Kykkos Monastery

Kykkos Monastery stands in the Troodos Mountains in Cyprus and is the island's richest Orthodox house. It was founded in the late eleventh century under Emperor Alexios I Komnenos, after the hermit Esaias, according to tradition, persuaded the governor Manuel Boutoumites to fetch from Constantinople an icon of the Virgin held to have been painted by the Apostle Luke. According to the tradition, the emperor's daughter was healed as the icon sailed to Cyprus.

The icon has been veiled ever since, its covering said to blind anyone who looks upon it. The Patriarch of Alexandria Gerasimos was the last man recorded to have seen it, in 1669.

Fire destroyed the church three times, and the church dates from 1745. In 1760 Cypriots credited the veiled icon with delivering the island from a plague of locusts, while pilgrims carried its fame across the Orthodox world.