The above-noted bus continues to Kiti, 10km from Larnaca. At a prominent three-way junction in the village, where roads head shorewards for Perivolia or on to Mazotos, stands the Byzantine church of Angeloktisti (Mon-Sat 8am-noon & 2-4pm,Sun 9.30am-noon & 2-4pm; donation). If necessary, the key can be fetched from the nearby snack bar, and smocks are provided for the "indecendy" dressed; since this is still Kiti's main church, visits during Sunday morning liturgy are problematic.
Most of the church dates from the eleventh and twelfth centuries, having replaced an original fifth-century sanctuary destroyed by the Arabs. What today serves as a narthex and display area for old icons (signs in Greek warn the faith- ful not to kiss them if wearing lipstick) began life as an apsed and rib-vaulted Latin chapel in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. The main nave has three aisles, a single apse and no true narthex, though there's a large yinaikonitis, and painted-on, all-seeing eyes to either side of the temblon.
But the highlight of Angeloktisti is the mosaic (illuminated on request) in the conch of the apse, probably the last surviving section of the original build- ing. Inside a floral/vegetal border, the Virgin -labelled unusually as Ayia Maria or "Saint Mary" -lightly balances a doll-like holy infant on her left arm as she gazes sternly to a point just left of the viewer. The pair is attended by two dissimilar archangels with fish-scale wings -Gabriel, on the right, is fleshier and more masculine than the damaged portrayal of Michael -proffering celestial orbs and sceptres in the direction of the Infant. The date of the mosaic is contro- versial, but the Ravenna-esque artistic conventions, especially Mary's stance on a jewelled pedestal and inclination to the left, would suggest the sixth century. Yet it is far more refined than the purportedly contemporaneous mosaic in the North Cyprus church of Kanakaria, which was the only other complete Cypriot ecclesiastical mosaic in situ until its desecration.
