The church of St Mary of the Carmelites is situated in the northwest of Famagusta. St Mary was built in the 14th Century as the church of a monastery. It has a single nave of four bays and a three-sided apse. In the second bay, two small chapels were added. The roof had ribbed vaults, and the exterior walls were supported by buttresses. In its day, it was an important church. Here, Peter Thomas, who was the Pope's representative and the Patriarch of Constantinople, was buried in a tomb in 1366. The walls of the church once were covered in frescoes, some of which are still (just) visible. Outside the west door, you can also see the remains of sculptures above the entrance. Most guide books will maintain that some fine tracery is visible in the west window. Sadly, however, that is no longer the case, and the tracery is lost for ever.

In the 13th century, as the Moslem armies gradually reclaimed the Holy Land, many Christians from the Middle East fled to Famagusta. Although Christian, their specific beliefs differed from that of Latin or Orthodox Christians. Because of this, they tended to congregate in the same area, and here you will find churches of the Nestorians, Jacobites and Armenians, as well as the Carmelites. Because the Carmelites originated from the Carmel mountains in then Syria, this area became known as the Syrian quarter of the city.