Eptakomi (locally Eptagkomi) is a mainly Greek community in the occupied district of Ammochostos, on the Karpasia peninsula. It lies 37 kilometres north of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 140 metres, below a narrow pass through the range towards the north coast. The English archaeologist David Hogarth, who toured Karpasia in 1888, considered the pass of Eptakomi the shortest and easiest route from the north coast to Salamis.¹ In the 1960 census it had 971 inhabitants, of whom 738 were Greeks and 233 Turks.

Name

The official gazetteer of place names of Cyprus (Gazetteer) writes the name “Eptakomi”. In the Venetian list of the royal villages of the late 15th century it is written “Heftacomi”.²

Founding and first records

The earliest written record of Eptakomi found dates from the late 15th century. In a Venetian statistical memorandum published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, the “Casal Heftacomi” is listed among the royal villages of the bailiwick of Karpasia.³

According to a tradition recorded by the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village was formed by the union of small settlements, among them Tarmassos, Ais Pifanis, Axentoudin, Agia Agathi, Tzipouros and Chalasmata.⁴ The Gazetteer records on the village’s land the place-names Tarmassos, Kipouros and Chalasmata, and the village had chapels of Agios Epifanios, Agios Afxentios and Agia Agathi.⁵ The inhabitants used to say that the village took its name from the union of seven small villages, each with its own little church.⁶

Frankish rule, Venetian rule

At the end of the 15th century Eptakomi was a royal village, that is, it belonged directly to the state and not to a feudal lord, like the neighbouring villages of Karpasia entered in the same list, among them Galateia, Korovia and Galinoporni.⁷

Turkish rule

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, Eptakomi is entered as a mixed village, with 45 property-holding households. The owners had mainly cotton fields and a few grain fields, 78 olive trees, a mill turned by horses and a disused water mill, more than 600 sheep and goats, and oxen, cows and horses. The village church is also entered in the survey as a property holder.⁸

British rule

Hogarth wrote in 1888 that Eptakomi was the pleasantest and most hospitable of the villages of Karpasia. He counted it among the few villages on this side, nestling behind the ridge in deep valleys or on sheltered plateaux, which grew cotton, gourds, melons and all kinds of vegetables wherever there was water.⁹

Churches and monasteries

The parish church of the village, Agios Loukas, on the southern edge of the old settlement, was completed in 1951. In the centre of the village stands the church of Agios Georgios, of the early 20th century.¹⁰ The village also had the old chapel of Agios Loukas, of the 18th century.

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, near the village there was once a monastery of Agios Loukas, abandoned long ago. From it comes a precious manuscript gospel, known as the Gospel of Eptakomi.¹¹ According to the Union of Displaced Communities of Ammochostos, it is written on parchment around the 10th century and is kept today in the Museum of Kykkos Monastery.¹²

Eptakomi also had the chapels of Agios Epifanios, Agia Agathi and Agios Afxentios.

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew cereals, carobs, colocasia and olives, and the forests of Gioutis and Katalymmata lay on the village’s land. In earlier times the village was known for the working of hides.¹³ According to the Union of Displaced Communities of Ammochostos, the inhabitants also kept bees and fished, and three olive presses produced the well-known “mavrolado” (black oil).¹⁴ From 1928 the co-operative credit society “Melissa” (“Bee”) worked in the village, and from 1947 a co-operative grocery.

Education

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, citing the Cypriot scholar Ieronymos Peristianis, a Greek school worked at Eptakomi before 1873, in the flour mill of the teacher, Chatzipapas Markos, and other teachers taught there up to 1877.¹⁵ In the school year 1973–74 the Greek primary school of the village had 42 pupils and two teachers.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 486 inhabitants in 1881, 572 in 1891, 694 in 1901, 845 in 1911 and 1,017 in 1921.¹⁶ In 1931 it had 1,125 inhabitants, 902 Christians and 223 Muslims, and in 1946 1,272, of whom 995 were Orthodox and 277 Muslims (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 971 inhabitants, 738 Greeks and 233 Turks, and in 1973 580 Greeks and about 250 Turks (estimate).

National struggles

The EOKA Fighters’ Register lists 89 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or assisted the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Eptakomi was occupied by the Turkish army. According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, in the summer of 1974 most of the Greek inhabitants fled before the advancing Turkish army.¹⁷ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in October 1975 372 Greeks were still living in the village, enclaved. In March 1976 the Greek primary school reopened, for the enclaved children of Eptakomi, Komi Kepir and Patriki, but it closed in June of the same year. The enclaved were forced to leave little by little, and the last of them left in October 1976.¹⁸ The Greek population of Eptakomi was thus ethnically cleansed, and since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the inhabitants from returning.

Sixteen inhabitants of Eptakomi, fifteen civilians and one soldier, were recorded as missing. Seven went missing in the village itself and nine elsewhere: six at Galateia, two at Ammochostos and one at Leonarisso. The remains of twelve have been located and identified, while four are still missing. Five more deaths are recorded in the village itself, all of them enclaved civilians. One more inhabitant of the village, a soldier, was killed in the area of Kontemenos.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the church of Agios Loukas into a mosque. The south entrance was walled up to fit a mihrab, and the crosses and all the furnishings were removed. When, around 2008–2009, a new mosque was built south of the church, the church was abandoned, with broken windows and damage from damp. The cemetery is derelict, overgrown with wild vegetation, with its crosses scattered, and its newer part is cultivated.¹⁹