Fotou the Cypriot

Saint Fotou the Cypriot (Photini) is one of the best-⁠loved saints of the Karpas peninsula in Cyprus. Nothing is known for certain of her life: neither her origin nor the time she lived is known. What is said rests on tradition and on the chronicler Leontios Machairas.

Local tradition of the Karpas says that she came from Rizokarpaso, of humble family, and that from her youth she left the world and marriage and struggled in a cave that she dug herself, in prayer, fasting, purity and complete devotion to God. She is said to have worked miracles even in life. At her death she was buried by the faithful; her tomb was found by divine revelation, and on it was written: "Photini, virgin bride of Christ". Leontios Machairas places this discovery in the fifteenth century and tells that in her underground cave there is a holy water that heals the eyes. The saint is regarded as a helper of those with diseases of the eyes.

The villagers of Agios Andronikos, near Yialousa, chose her as the patron of their village and built a church in her honour in the eighteenth century, in the time of Archbishop Chrysanthos. On the eve of the feast, 2 August, thousands of the faithful gathered there. After the displacement of 1974, the bones of the saint were placed in the church of the Apostle Andrew in the Kolossi settlement near Limassol. She is remembered on 2 August, by the calendar of the Church of Cyprus.