Qualla: Church of St. Nicholas of the Roof https://qualla.com/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/p/q/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Church of St. Nicholas of the Roof https://qualla.com/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof Church of St. Nicholas of the Roof: Introduction https://qualla.com/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof/ Photo credit Benutzer:Coranton. Coranton at German Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. Stand in the courtyard of Agios Nikolaos tis Stegis and the first thing you notice is the roof. Or rather, the two roofs. A steep timber overlay of flat tiles sits like a hat pulled down over the original Byzantine domes underneath, hiding most of the cross-in-square form that medieval masons built in the eleventh century. The villagers who added that second roof, sometime in the twelfth century, were not making an architectural statement. They were trying to keep the Troodos rain and snow off six hundred years of fresco that they had inherited and did not want to lose. The church got its nickname from the fix: "of the Roof" - tis Stegis - because that is the part visitors saw first.

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Image: Benutzer:Coranton. Coranton at German Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/p/q/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-wp/swpq-church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Church of St. Nicholas of the Roof: A Survivor in the Pines https://qualla.com/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof/ Photo credit Daryona, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Troodos Mountains run down the spine of Cyprus, and in the eleventh century they were a refuge from the coastal raids that defined Mediterranean life. Monasteries went inland and uphill. Agios Nikolaos was built around 1100 near the village of Kakopetria, set in a clearing of...

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Image: Daryona | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/p/q/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-wp/swpq-church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-a-survivor-in-the-pines.mp3 0:06 2 full Church of St. Nicholas of the Roof: Six Hundred Years of Painters https://qualla.com/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof/ Photo credit unknown medieval painters in Cyprus (12th to 14th century), Public domain. Walk inside and the walls argue with each other across centuries. The earliest surviving frescoes date to the eleventh century, painted soon after the church was built. The art historian A. H. S. Megaw saw in them "the deep-set staring eyes of the expressionist style" inherited f...

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Image: unknown medieval painters in Cyprus (12th to 14th century) | Public domain

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/p/q/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-wp/swpq-church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-six-hundred-years-of-painters.mp3 0:06 3 full Church of St. Nicholas of the Roof: The Painted Churches of Troodos https://qualla.com/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof/ Photo credit Zairon, CC BY-SA 4.0. Agios Nikolaos is one of ten painted churches in the Troodos region that UNESCO inscribed as a single World Heritage site in 1985. The grouping makes sense: these mountain churches preserve the most important cycle of Byzantine and post-Byzantine painting on the island, ranging f...

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Image: Zairon | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/p/q/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-wp/swpq-church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-the-painted-churches-of-troodos.mp3 0:06 4 full Church of St. Nicholas of the Roof: The Logic of the Cover https://qualla.com/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof/ Photo credit Croquemort Nestor, CC0. There is something practical and a little stubborn about the second roof. Originally, Agios Nikolaos had no narthex either. The entrance porch was added in the early twelfth century, covered by a small calotte and two transverse arches, and at the same moment the steep timber-and...

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Image: Croquemort Nestor | CC0

]]> Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/w/p/q/church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-wp/swpq-church-of-st-nicholas-of-the-roof-the-logic-of-the-cover.mp3 0:06 5 full