Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque: A Lusignan Gothic Cathedral in Famagusta
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.8
- Popularity
- Medium
- Country
- Cyprus
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Crusader, Kingdom of Cyprus, Ottoman, Venetian
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page8 sections
History
Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque is a medieval Gothic cathedral-mosque in Famagusta, Cyprus, built under the Lusignan dynasty during the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Originally the Cathedral of Saint Nicholas, it was consecrated in 1328 and served as a Catholic cathedral until its conversion into a mosque in 1571. Its French Gothic design, including unusual Rayonnant Gothic features associated with refined tracery and radiating geometric patterns, gives the building an important place in the architectural history of Lusignan Cyprus.
Construction under Lusignan rule
Construction began between 1298 and about 1300 and continued into the first half of the fourteenth century. An inscription dated 1311 records the progress of the works. Isabelle of Lusignan may have initiated the project with a donation of five bezants, medieval gold coins used as a monetary unit in the eastern Mediterranean. Bishop Guy of Ibelin later bequeathed 20,000 bezants after funds for the building had been misappropriated. The 1311 inscription bears the signature of Bishop Baldwin Lambert, two bishops who were associated with the Latin Church in medieval Cyprus.
The cathedral became the setting for the Lusignan rulers’ coronations as kings of Jerusalem. These ceremonies followed their coronations as kings of Cyprus at Saint Sophia Cathedral in Nicosia. The building was therefore connected to both the religious life and the royal ceremonies of Lusignan Famagusta.
Ottoman conversion
Famagusta fell to the Ottoman Empire in August 1571 after a ten-month siege. Approximately 6,000 Christian defenders resisted an Ottoman army of more than 100,000. Following the conquest, the cathedral became a mosque and was known as the Saint Sophia Mosque of Mağusa. Christian statuary, crosses, stained glass, frescoes, paintings, most tombs, and the altar were removed or covered with plaster, while the Gothic structure itself was retained.
Christian access to the building was prohibited from its conversion until the British took possession of Cyprus in 1878. The mosque was renamed in 1954 after Lala Mustafa Pasha, an Ottoman grand vizier and military commander associated with the conquest of Cyprus. Marco Antonio Bragadin, the Venetian commander of Famagusta’s fortress, surrendered after the siege and was later tortured on Lala Mustafa Pasha’s orders. The building remains an active Sunni mosque and is the largest medieval building in Famagusta.
Later influence and memory
The cathedral had limited architectural influence among surviving Lusignan-period buildings in Cyprus, although its west portal and other details were copied in a Greek Orthodox church at Lysi during the nineteenth century. The building also appears in Kuraj by Silvia Di Natale, Sunrise by Victoria Hislop, and In Search of Sixpence by Michael Paraskos.
Remains
Gothic cathedral structure
The building follows a French Gothic tradition and has characteristics of Rayonnant Gothic, a thirteenth- and fourteenth-century architectural phase known for refined tracery, large windows, and radiating geometric patterns. Its west facade, three doors, twin towers over the side aisles, and flat roof also reflect Crusader architecture, whose medieval Latin Christian buildings combined western European forms with local traditions. The design has been compared especially closely with Reims Cathedral, leading to the description “the Reims of Cyprus.” Its east end has also been compared with the Basilica of Saint-Urbain in Troyes.
A 1311 inscription on a buttress beside the south door provides a glimpse of the unfinished building. It states that the apse chapels, the rounded or polygonal eastern ends of the church, and two bays of the side aisles had been completed, while the nave and choir had not yet received their roofs. Four chapels were added beside the side aisles at a later period. A few tombs remain identifiable in the north aisle, while most human and animal heads carved on the building’s sculptures were destroyed. Some carved heads survive in less accessible areas.
Loggia Bembo
The Loggia Bembo, a meeting chamber at the cathedral’s south-west corner, was added sometime after 1480. Its entrance differs substantially from the cathedral’s Gothic architecture and has elaborate moulding with slender marble pillars. Heraldic devices associated with the Bembo family appear on the structure. Late antique marble fragments, probably brought from Salamis, were reused as seats on both sides of the entrance, and one fragment preserves a detail from a late antique lintel.
Minaret and damaged towers
After the cathedral became a mosque, a minaret, a tower associated with a mosque and traditionally used for the call to prayer, was built on one of the cathedral’s towers. The upper parts of both original towers were damaged by earthquakes and then badly damaged by Ottoman bombardment during the siege of 1571. They were never repaired. During the Second World War, the building was exposed to vibrations from exploding anti-submarine grenades and to anti-aircraft fire, but it withstood these effects comparatively well.
Nearby sites
