The whole place inside and around the castle smelled of jasmine and sea breeze. It was completely soaked in history. And these walls, which reached fifteen meters high, had been touched by millions of people, rich and poor, educated and uneducated, kings and emperors and invaders, ruthless and compassionate, devout and sacrilegious, prophets and robbers, pirates, knights, plunderers and protectors of sacred things, some of God and others of the Devil… The castle… It has stood there for almost a thousand years, and it has become like a person, a stoic person who endures light and darkness, sun and flood, water and salt, heat and cold, all without complaint or grumbling, never bending, sturdy through the centuries, silent, a rock of sanctity and reverence. If it could speak, to tell even a few of the things that happened there, beside it, in front of it… If the castle gates could speak with their stone lips and make the world sweat…
Calm, without even breathing, it spread its protective net over everyone, saving souls and bodies. It still does so. And its builders, those who bled hands and bodies to finish it, as well as the monks who fortified and inhabited it, gave their blessing, and thus left it to time. To take the visitor’s breath away, forcing them to lift their gaze to the sky. So it saved souls and lives, and thus it stood for centuries in its sacred solitude. This awe was also felt by Christodoulos Pavlidis every day as he climbed the alleys to enter, to cross the little streets with the small shops and reach the monastery, where he spent most of his day, sometimes even his night.