Machairas Monastery

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Still an active monastery, whose monks adhere to extremely strict doctrines, this place is a site of reverence for pious and non-religious Cypriots alike. The vestry exhibits valuable manuscripts and relics, while another room is devoted to the most celebrated figure of the national Liberation Struggle, Grigoris Afxentiou. A guerilla fighter, Afxentiou disguised himself as a monk and hid out here, before dying violently at the hands of the British in 1957 (he was burned alive in his hide-out when he refused to surrender). The hide-out, which is a kilometre away from the monastery, is the site of a shrine to Afxentiou, overshadowed by a larger than life statue of the hero.