Agios Vasileios is a predominantly Greek community in the occupied part of the Lefkosia district. It lies 17 kilometres west of Lefkosia and 18 kilometres east of Morfou, at an elevation of 160 metres, in the western central plain of Cyprus. It is built on the Lefkosia–Morfou road.¹ In the 1960 census it had 609 inhabitants, of whom 492 were Greeks and 117 Turks.

Name

It took its name from Saint Vasileios (Basil), to whom its church is dedicated. In the mapping of Cyprus by the British officer Kitchener, in the first years of British rule, it is recorded as “Ayios Vasilios”.²

Founding and first records

The 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron preserves the list of the villages and revenues distributed in the 1460s by King James II, and notes that he found its details written in royal privileges. Among them is a “San Vassili”, which according to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia is Agios Vasileios; if so, it is the first written mention of the village.³

Frankish rule

In the 1460s King James II gave “San Vassili” as a fief to Gianies Masdomonto. According to Bustron, James was then distributing villages and revenues to Cypriot knights who came over to his side and to foreigners who had entered his service, among them Catalans and Spaniards. About Masdomonto himself the chronicler gives no further details.⁴

Turkish rule

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, a register of the Archbishopric of Cyprus of 1825 records 22 taxpaying Christian inhabitants in the village, who together paid 1,088 piastres.⁵

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, Agios Vasileios is recorded as a village with a mixed population and 15 households holding property. Their holdings were mainly fields, with threshing floors, a few vineyards and a small cotton field, and only 21 olive trees. The largest part of their property was their animals: about 780 sheep and goats, oxen for ploughing and a few cows.⁶

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox church of the village, in its centre, is dedicated to Saint Vasileios. The cemetery lies south of the Lefkosia–Morfou road.⁷ The 2009 list of occupied churches of the Church of Cyprus also records the chapels of Agia Marina and Agios Tryfon.

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew mainly cereals on the bare, dry land of the village, and stock-breeding was quite developed, with about 1,260 sheep and goats; in 1973 they also kept 108 cows and 1,760 poultry. The same encyclopaedia mentions a quarry of soft marble near the village and a community forest.⁸ In 1929 the Agios Vasileios Co-operative Credit Society was founded.

Population

The population of Agios Vasileios grew steadily. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 195 inhabitants in 1881, 207 in 1891, 242 in 1901, 295 in 1911 and 338 in 1921.⁹ In 1931 the village had 348 inhabitants, 276 Christians and 72 Muslims, and in 1946 415, of whom 341 were Orthodox and 74 Muslims (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 609 inhabitants, 492 Greeks and 117 Turks, and in 1973 611 Greeks. In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school of the village had 64 pupils and 3 teachers.

National struggles

In the Enosis plebiscite of 1950, 192 inhabitants of Agios Vasileios signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 33 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Agios Vasileios was captured by the Turkish army and its Greek population was subjected to ethnic cleansing. Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the return of its inhabitants. The village has been turned into a Turkish military camp, and very few of its houses remain.¹⁰ On the land of the village one person killed in 1974 is recorded, a soldier, who was killed in the area of Agios Vasileios. Two more soldiers from the village were killed elsewhere, at Pachyammos and at Pileri.

The church of Agios Vasileios lies inside the camp, where access is forbidden. According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, its condition, as far as can be seen, is poor, and the middle part of its roof appears to have collapsed. The cemetery wall has almost disappeared, and no crosses or gravestones remain on the graves.¹¹