Panagia Kanakaria, Byzantine church and monastery in Lythragkomi, Northern Cyprus.

Panagia Kanakaria is a church of mixed building phases in Lythragkomi, on the Karpasia peninsula. Its mosaic apse survives from the 6th-century basilica; a dome and narthex were added in the 11th–12th centuries, and the bell tower dates from 1888. Wall paintings from the 12th, 14th and 16th centuries remain inside, and the monastery beside it was restored by June 2008.

Built around 500 as a three-aisled wooden-roofed basilica of an early Byzantine settlement, it was destroyed in the mid-7th century, probably by raiders, and rebuilt around 700 with masonry piers. An earthquake around 1160 left only the mosaic apse standing; the church was then rebuilt with three domes, and the central dome collapsed in 1491 and was replaced around 1500. The bell tower dates from 1888.

The name Kanakaria is popularly linked to the Virgin's sweet face, and the mosaic in the blind arch above the south entrance still carries that image. Pilgrims long scraped single glass tesserae from the apse, believing the glass had healing powers. The monastery beside the church is probably an 18th-century foundation, though a monastic community may have existed here far earlier.

The church stands in Lythragkomi (Boltaşlı) on the Karpasia peninsula, in the part of Cyprus north of the 1974 ceasefire line, so it is reached from the northern side. Restoration of the church and its monastery was completed in June 2008. The building has been closed since 1974 for lack of use, so check locally whether it can be entered.

The apse mosaic, made in the 530s, is among the oldest surviving apse mosaics still in its original position on Cyprus. It shows the Virgin seated on a lyre-shaped ivory throne with the Christ child facing frontally, flanked by archangels Michael and Gabriel and framed by thirteen medallions of the apostles and Christ. Most of it was torn from the wall in 1978/79; fragments bought by the Menil Collection and the Getty case returned to Cyprus, but parts of the Virgin, the halo and the throne are still missing.