Karpaseia is a small Maronite community in the occupied district of Keryneia. It lies 23 kilometres west of Keryneia, 290 metres above sea level, near Myrtou. It was one of the four Maronite villages of Cyprus that survived into the 20th century, together with Kormakitis, Asomatos and Agia Marina Skyllouras.¹ In the 1960 census it had 193 inhabitants, 3 of them Greeks and 190 Maronites.

Name

The origin of the name has not been explained by a linguist. In the sources of the 15th and 16th centuries the village is written “Carpassia”: so it is recorded by the 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron and by a Venetian list of the late 15th century, published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie. The Italian Jesuit Girolamo Dandini, the pope’s envoy to the Maronites, mentions it in the same form in 1596. On Kitchener’s map, in the late 19th century, it is written “Karpasia”. The official gazetteer of Cyprus records the village as Καρπάσεια and its forest in the form “Καρπάχεια”.²

Founding and first records

When the village was founded is not known. Its first written record dates from 1461, when Bustron names Karpaseia among the villages that King James II took from the nobleman Galtier de Nores.³

Frankish and Venetian rule

In the mid-15th century Karpaseia was a fief of Galtier de Nores, who also held Vasileia, Kormakitis, Myrtou, Kampyli and “Margi”. In the struggle for the throne between Queen Charlotte and her half-brother James, de Nores remained loyal to Charlotte. In 1461 the ship on which he was travelling was wrecked on the coast of Pentageia, and James’s men seized him together with two of his sons. He refused to swear allegiance to James, because he had sworn to defend Charlotte. The king took away his villages and, according to Mas Latrie, imprisoned him with his children, but left him a small pension to live on. His steadfastness became proverbial in Cyprus: of people who did not change their minds it was said “the faith of Sir Galtier” (“la fe de ser Galtier”).⁴

In the late 15th century, shortly after Cyprus passed to the Venetians, Karpaseia was a royal village, that is, it belonged directly to the state and not to a feudal lord. The Venetian list published by Mas Latrie records “Casal Carpassia” among the royal villages of the bailiwick of Lapithos, the administrative district to which it belonged, together with Vasileia, Myrtou, Kampyli and Klepini.⁵

Turkish rule

In 1596 Dandini recorded Karpaseia among the nineteen villages and estates where Maronites then lived. As he was told, they had at least one parish in each of them.⁶ By 1686 the Maronites had been reduced to eight villages, Karpaseia among them.⁷

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Loukas, bishop of the Maronites of Cyprus from 1671 until his death in 1673, who is referred to as “Luca di Carpasia”, came from Karpaseia. After his death the see of the Maronite archdiocese of Cyprus was moved to Lebanon.⁸

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, Karpaseia has 15 property-holding households. They had cotton fields, wheat fields and fields for fodder, small gardens and threshing floors, 166 olive trees, 28 mulberries, one fig tree and two almond trees, two olive mills and ten beehives. The animals were mainly goats, 600 of them, and oxen for ploughing. Among the owners one convert to Islam is also recorded, Husein.⁹

Churches and monasteries

The village church, which is Maronite, is dedicated to the Holy Cross and stands at the eastern edge of the village centre. The British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the monuments of Cyprus in the early 20th century, notes it as a church of old foundation, much rebuilt, with a few wall paintings still on the side walls.¹⁰ The Maronite cemetery lies 200 metres north-east of the church.¹¹

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew mainly cereals, fodder crops, carobs and olives. South and west of the village spread uncultivated land with pines, thyme, wild olives and terebinths, and part of its land belonged to the Karpacheia forest. In 1973 the inhabitants had 634 sheep, 286 goats and 53 cows; in cows the village ranked third in the district, after Lapithos and Asomatos.¹² In 1946 the New Cooperative Credit Society of Karpasia was founded.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 63 inhabitants in 1881, 65 in 1891, 67 in 1901, 112 in 1911 and 119 in 1921.¹³ In 1931 the village had 132 inhabitants, 129 Christians and 3 Muslims, and in 1946 183, of whom 4 were Orthodox and 179 were recorded under other religions (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 193 inhabitants, 190 Maronites and 3 Greeks, and in 1973 245 inhabitants and no Turks. In the school year 1973–74 the village’s primary school had 30 pupils and one teacher.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Karpaseia was taken by the Turkish army. Most of its inhabitants became refugees, and those who stayed in the village have lived enclaved ever since; the village’s population was ethnically cleansed.

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the enclaved Maronites of Karpaseia numbered 82 in October 1975, 50 in 1981 and 42 in December 1985, and in 2009 only 13 lived permanently in the village. The primary school reopened at the end of 1975 and in 1981 had only 10 pupils.¹⁴ In March 2026 the enclaved of Karpaseia numbered 5.¹⁵

One civilian, an inhabitant of the village, is recorded among the dead of 1974; he lost his life in Karpaseia itself.