Overview

The small Country Church of Agios Neofytos, located outside the village of Kato Drys in the southwest on a mountainside, was built in 1923 through the initiative and donations of the villagers and later renovated by Anna Pattichi. The church is made of local stone with a wooden and tiled roof, and has a single aisle. Saint Neofytos, born in 1134 in Kato Drys to poor parents, became a monk at 17 and lived a monastic life at the Monastery of Agios Chrysostomos, where he learned to read and memorized the Book of Psalms. After a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and an unsuccessful search for peace, he withdrew to a cave at the precipitous end of the "Bee Mountain" and lived as a hermit for 60 years, characterized by prayer and fasting. A liturgy is held in the church once a year on Agios Neofytos's day, and his memory is celebrated twice a year on September 28th and January 24th.