Nilus of Machairas

Saint Nilus of Machairas was the first enthroned abbot of the monastery of the Mother of God at Machairas in Cyprus and the author of its Typikon. He is commemorated together with the other three founders, Neophytos, Ignatios and Prokopios, on 13 December (new style, in the Church of Cyprus).

Ignatios left him as his successor by written provision. In 1201 Nilus wrote a Typikon, that is, the rules of monastic life and good order of the monastery; the document survives to this day and from it all the information about the founding of the community is known. In 1209 he was elected bishop of Tamassos and left Joachim as abbot. As bishop he confirmed the Typikon he had written as abbot and founded a women's monastery dedicated to the Mother of God, which he called Blachernitissa. It is very probable that he was also archbishop of Cyprus between 1215 and 1221.

According to oral tradition, at the time of Iconoclasm (716 to 843), a hermit brought the icon of the Mother of God Agiosoritissa from Constantinople to Cyprus and settled in a cave on the site of the present monastery. The icon is regarded as one of the seventy painted by the apostle Luke. After the hermit's death the icon was forgotten and brambles covered the cave entrance until the twelfth century, when the Mother of God miraculously gave a knife to the venerable ascetics Neophytos and Ignatios to cut the brambles and find the icon; hence the name Machairas, meaning of the knife, and Agiosoritissa became Machairiotissa.