Masari (locally Massari) is a small Greek community in the occupied part of the Lefkosia district. It lies 8 kilometres east of Morfou, at an elevation of 130 metres, in the Morfou plain. Its land extends along the banks of the Serrachis river, as the lower part of the Peristerona river is called there.¹ In the 1960 census it had 185 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Name

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, which cites the linguist Simos Menardos, the name comes from the words massa, massara and massari, which the Franks used for farming estates. Menardos notes that the village was a chiftlik, that is, a large privately owned farming estate, and that other estates in Cyprus bear the same name, such as Paliomasara near Kolossi.² Paliomasara, on the land of Episkopi in the Lemesos district, and Masares, on the land of Palaikythro, are recorded in the official place-name index of Cyprus (the Gazetteer).³

The inhabitants also had their own tradition about the name. They said that in the years of Frankish rule Massara, the servant of the rigas, that is, the king, lived in the village, while his mistress lived in neighbouring Fyllia, the rigaina, his lawful wife, in Kyra, and his court (avli) in Avlona.⁴

On Kitchener’s map of Cyprus, in the first years of British rule, the name is written “Masari”.⁵ The Gazetteer records the community as “Masari, ta”.

Founding and first records

Masari has not been found with certainty in the lists of villages of Frankish and Venetian rule. Its first secure written record is in the property survey of 1832/33.

According to the Community Council of Masari, one kilometre east of the village there is the place-name “Paliomassara”, where ruins of an old settlement survive, as well as caves and an old mill with underground irrigation tunnels.⁶

Turkish rule

In the property survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Masari is recorded as a Christian village with three property-holding households. Two thirds of the value of the property recorded, however, belonged to the chiftlik of an agha, whom the survey mentions as an official of the sultan’s stables. The village church also held property. Fields are recorded, mostly fallow, 79 olive trees and 15 mulberry trees, three old manganos, that is, water wheels, with running water, and about 340 sheep and goats.⁷

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the chiftlik at some point passed into Greek hands, and in 1821 it belonged to a certain Solomis, who was executed by the Turks in the massacres of July of that year.⁸

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox parish church of the village, at the south-western edge of the old core of the settlement, is dedicated to Saint Antony and dates from the 16th century. It is small, single-aisled and barrel-vaulted, and beside it, to the east, lies the village cemetery. According to the British student of the monuments of Cyprus Rupert Gunnis, it had wall paintings, which were whitewashed in the 20th century.⁹ According to the Community Council, plates were set into its vault.¹⁰ Agios Antonios is an Ancient Monument.

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 a large part of the land was irrigated from boreholes, over the large aquifer of Morfou, and from the waters of the Serrachis. They grew mainly citrus fruit, oranges and citrons, and vegetables, such as tomatoes, cucumbers, watermelons and melons. In 1973 the stock-breeders of the village kept about 600 sheep. Between 1971 and 1973 a large earth dam for recharging the groundwater was built south-east of the village.¹¹ According to the Community Council, at least four olive mills operated in the village, and the millers were paid in oil, in proportion to the quantity of olives they ground.¹² In 1962 the New Cooperative Credit Society of Massari was founded.

Education

According to the Community Council of Masari, an elementary school operated in the village in the school years 1927–30 and again from 1952–53; in the other years the children went to the school of Kyra or of Fyllia. The school was housed in small houses of the village, and shortly before 1974 the foundations had been begun for a new school building and for a new church.¹³ In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school had 55 pupils and two teachers.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the population of Masari grew almost continuously, and quickly after 1931, thanks to its fertile, irrigated land and its short distance from Morfou. According to the same source, Masari had 45 inhabitants in 1881, 49 in 1891, 70 in 1901, 62 in 1911 and 75 in 1921.¹⁴ In 1946 it had 138 inhabitants, all of them Orthodox (the 1946 census recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 185 inhabitants, all of them Greeks, and in 1973 317 Greeks.

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 68 inhabitants signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 24 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Masari 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 the inhabitants.

Two inhabitants of the village, both civilians, were arrested in Masari itself and recorded as missing. Their remains have not been located to this day. Two other inhabitants, both civilians, were killed elsewhere, one in Morfou and the other at an unknown place.

The 2009 list records the church of Agios Antonios as desecrated, locked and so damaged as to be in danger of collapse. The plates set into its vault were removed.¹⁵ In the cemetery not a single grave remains, only a few fragments of crosses. The church and the cemetery wall were repaired in 2022–23.¹⁶ According to the Community Council of Masari, the occupation authorities illegally converted the old school building into a mosque.¹⁷