Katokopia is a large Greek community in the occupied part of the Lefkosia district. It lies 6 kilometres south-east of Morfou, at an elevation of 120 metres, in the Morfou region. Its land is flat and to the north reaches the Serrachis river.¹ In the 1960 census it had 1,198 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Name

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, which cites Simos Menardos, the name does not have “κάτω” (“lower”) as its first element but comes from the word “κακοτοπιά”, that is, a rough, stony place, because the village’s land is full of stones; for this reason Menardos wrote “Κατοκοπιά”.² In the list of fiefs of the 1460s the village is written “Catocopia”, while in a Venetian memorandum of the late 15th century it is written “Cacotopia”.³

Founding and first records

Katokopia first appears in a written source in the 1460s, as “Catocopia”, in the list of the fiefs distributed by King James II. It is preserved by the 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron.⁴

Frankish and Venetian rule

In Bustron’s list Katokopia is mentioned three times. James II gave “the village of Catocopia” to Gioan Ferer, and Katokopia is also recorded as a fief of Gianes Sivalier. A third entry gives Katokopia and a village “Syriati” to Margarita, daughter of Franceschin de Bandes.⁵

In the Venetian memorandum of the late 15th century, published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, “Casal Cacotopia” is recorded among the three villages of a “madonna Margharita”, together with the villages “Calavasso” and “Striatis”, just as in Bustron’s list Margarita held Katokopia together with “Syriati”.⁶

Turkish rule

In the property survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Katokopia is recorded as a village with a mixed population and 27 property-holding households. The holdings were almost all fields, with cereals, fodder crops, a little cotton, vineyards and a mulberry garden, and 22 threshing floors. The inhabitants had only eight olive trees, about 180 sheep and goats, and 40 oxen and cows.⁷

Churches and monasteries

The old Greek Orthodox church of the village is dedicated to the Panagia Chryseleousa and is an Ancient Monument. Its oldest parts date from the 15th or 16th century, while most of it was rebuilt in 1818. In 1904 the church was renovated and extended to the west, and in 1910 the bell tower was added. Around it was most probably the old cemetery, which closed in 1915; the new cemetery was laid out 300 metres further east, on the road to Masari.⁸

In the 20th century the inhabitants built a new church, again of the Panagia Chryseleousa, about 200 metres south-west of the old one. Its construction began in 1969 and was completed in December 1973, and it was in use for only a few months, before it had even been consecrated.⁹

Economy and society

Katokopia lies over the large underground aquifer of the Morfou plain. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, boreholes and the waters of the Serrachis allowed irrigated farming to expand, and before 1974 the inhabitants grew mainly citrus fruit, vegetables and some cereals. The oranges of Katokopia, from more than 214 hectares, were known throughout Cyprus. In 1973 the village still had 615 sheep, 351 goats and 39 cows. According to the same encyclopaedia, the Cyprus railway passed through the village’s land and had a stop there.¹⁰

In 1923 the Katokopia Cooperative Credit Society was founded, in 1952 the Cooperative Grocery and in 1961 the Katokopia Cooperative Society for the Marketing of Agricultural Products.

Population

The population of Katokopia grew steadily, and in 42 years it almost doubled. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 301 inhabitants in 1881, 352 in 1891, 412 in 1901, 492 in 1911 and 602 in 1921.¹¹ In 1931 the village had 705 inhabitants, all of them Christians, and in 1946 901, all of them Orthodox (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 1,198 inhabitants, all of them Greeks, and in 1973 1,578 Greeks. In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school of Katokopia had 190 pupils and 6 teachers.

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 548 inhabitants signed, essentially all the adult Greek inhabitants. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 35 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Katokopia was captured by the Turkish army and its Greek population was subjected to ethnic cleansing. Most of the inhabitants fled before the advancing Turkish army.¹² In early 1975 some of those who had stayed in the village were moved, like others from the surrounding villages, to a school in Morfou, where the Greeks were held under restriction until the detention centre closed in July 1975.¹³ Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the return of the inhabitants.

Three inhabitants of Katokopia, two soldiers and one civilian, were recorded as missing, and none has been identified to this day. None of them went missing in the village itself; they went missing in the Lapithos–Karavas area, on the Keryneia–Panagra road and at Argaki. One more soldier from the village was killed in Keryneia.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the new church of the Panagia Chryseleousa into a mosque. The old church was desecrated and damaged, and of the cemetery only parts of its enclosure wall remain.¹⁴