Agia Trias (Agia Triada) is a large Greek community in the occupied district of Ammochostos, on the Karpasia peninsula. It lies 53 kilometres north-east of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 140 metres, about three kilometres east of Aigialousa, on the northern side of the low ridge that continues the Pentadaktylos range.¹ An early Christian basilica with mosaic floors and a baptistery was excavated on its land. In the 1960 census it had 1,121 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Name

The village took its name from the Holy Trinity (Agia Triada), to which its church is dedicated. The official gazetteer of place names of Cyprus (Gazetteer) writes the name “Agia Trias”, and gives the same form for the church, the ancient basilica and the quarter on the land of Aigialousa.²

Founding and first records

Until the 20th century Agia Triada was a quarter of Aigialousa. It is not recorded separately in the 1931 census, and it first appears as a village of its own in the 1946 census. According to the Union of Displaced Communities of Ammochostos, it became an independent community in 1939.³

The place, however, had been inhabited since the early Greek medieval period. The excavations around the basilica uncovered the streets and houses of a settlement that went on living after the church was destroyed, in the period of the Arab raids.⁴

Archaeological sites

In 1957, after a mosaic floor was found, the Department of Antiquities dug trial trenches under the archaeologist Andreas Dikigoropoulos and located a three-aisled basilica with mosaic floors. From 1963 to 1971 the excavations were directed by the Cypriot archaeologist Athanasios Papageorghiou. They uncovered the basilica with three apses, the narthex and the atrium with three porticoes, and to the south-east a large complex, which was identified as a baptistery when its cross-shaped font was found. The Cypriot archaeologist Vassos Karageorghis called it the first baptistery of such architectural conception and archaeological importance found in Cyprus. The mosaics of the narthex and of the southern annex carry two inscriptions, which may name the donor and the mosaicist.⁵

The basilica was built at the end of the 5th or the beginning of the 6th century and was destroyed in the 7th century; a layer of ash shows a violent destruction. The last seasons also found a chapel against the north wall, an ironworking workshop and, on the west street, small houses of the period of the Arab raids built over earlier ones. Later the atrium was turned into dwellings.⁶ The ruins of the basilica are an Ancient Monument.

Greek medieval period (“Byzantium”)

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the basilica served a small farming community, and the settlement survived the Arab raids or grew up again later together with neighbouring Aigialousa.⁷ The houses built over the ruins show that the inhabitants did not abandon the place.

Churches and monasteries

The church of Agia Triada, on the road from Aigialousa, was built at the end of the 19th century. In the eastern part of the village, near the basilica, stands the church of Agios Fanourios, of the 19th century.⁸

Two chapels outside the village are Ancient Monuments. Agia Pavla, at the southern edge of the village, has a rock-cut chamber of the 4th century, and its building is of the 15th century, with 20th-century additions. Agia Marina stands in the fields south-east of the village.⁹

Agia Triada also had the chapels of Agios Georgios, Agios Stefanos, Agia Mavra, of the 18th century, Agios Filippos, Agios Dimitrios, Agia Thekla and Agios Fokas.

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew wheat, barley, fodder crops, olives, carobs, almonds, tobacco and fruit, and stock-breeding was well developed: in 1973, 280 stock-breeders kept almost 2,500 sheep and 1,700 goats.¹⁰ According to the Union of Displaced Communities of Ammochostos, the inhabitants also produced silk.¹¹ The village had a co-operative grocery from 1946, a co-operative credit society from 1948 and a co-operative olive growers’ society from 1955.

Education

In the school year 1973–74 the village had two Greek primary schools, with 197 and 16 pupils and ten teachers in all.

Population

In 1946 Agia Triada had 1,078 inhabitants, all of them Orthodox (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 1,121 inhabitants, all Greeks, and in 1973 1,212, again all Greeks. According to the Union of Displaced Communities of Ammochostos, it was one of the villages of Karpasia that grew fast in the 20th century.¹²

National struggles

In the 1950 plebiscite for union with Greece, when Agia Triada was entered in the lists together with Aigialousa, 672 inhabitants signed, all the adult Greek inhabitants in effect. The EOKA Fighters’ Register lists 297 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or assisted the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Agia Triada was occupied by the Turkish army. Its inhabitants, as in other villages of northern Karpasia, stayed in their homes and found themselves in confinement, enclaved.¹³ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in October 1975 1,036 Greeks were still living in the village. Many were then forced to leave for the free areas: by December 1976, 740 remained, by May 1980 273, by December 1985 178 and in 2007 80.¹⁴ According to the same encyclopaedia, the primary school reopened in October 1975 and in the spring of 1977 had 77 pupils; together with the school of Rizokarpason, it was one of the two Greek schools that operated in the occupied areas after the invasion.¹⁵ In March 2026, 61 enclaved persons lived in Agia Triada.¹⁶ The other Greek inhabitants were ethnically cleansed, and the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent their return.

One inhabitant of Agia Triada, a civilian, went missing at the locality Akrades, on the land of neighbouring Agios Andronikos, and is still missing. Three deaths are recorded in the village itself, all of them enclaved civilians.

The church of Agia Triada is still used by the enclaved, and services are held from time to time at Agios Fanourios. In 2022 the chapel of Agia Marina was in fair to poor condition, without its doors, windows and bell.¹⁷