The Saint Barnabas Monastery, named after Saint Barnabas, one of the founders of the Independent Orthodox Church, is one of the most important religious structures on the Cyprus peninsula. Based on what religious sources and ancient writers have told us, it is known that Saint Barnabas was born in Salamis and came to the world of a Jewish family from the Levite dynasty in Syria.
Saint Barnabas; It is also known that during his religious education in Jerusalem, he had the opportunity to see the miracles of Jesus in Bethesda and accepted Christianity in 33 AD, he distributed the lands he inherited from his family in Salamis to the poor and donated the money he earned from the sale of a land he had set aside for himself to the saints in Jerusalem.
Saint Barnabas, who started working with Saints Paul of Tarsus and John Mark to spread Christianity in 45 AD, In 75, he was captured and imprisoned in a dark cell next to the Synagogue in Salamis, and on the same night, he was first stoned by Syrian Jews from Salamis and then burned on wood in a large fireplace.
In order to prevent his followers from getting their hands on the remains of his body, they wrapped them in a linen cloth to be thrown into the sea. His followers, who watched this event from afar, secretly took St. Barnabas' body, taking advantage of the darkness, and carried it to an ancient tomb under a carob tree to the West of Salamis in a coffin. They also placed a copy of the Gospel of St. Mathews, which he had written and carried with him, on his chest and closed the tomb.