Mousoulita is a small Greek community in the occupied district of Ammochostos. It lies 28 kilometres west of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 50 metres, on the plain of the Mesaoria, next to the new Nicosia–Ammochostos road, and its land is crossed by the streams of the Pediaios.¹ In the 1960 census it had 219 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Founding and first records

Mousoulita has not been found in the lists of fiefs and royal villages of Frankish and Venetian rule. The official gazetteer of Cyprus records the place-name Palia Mousoulita (Old Mousoulita).²

Turkish rule

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Mousoulita is described as a mixed village, with seven property-owning households, one of the smallest numbers in the Mesaoria. Their fields were mostly cotton fields, with a little wheat, one irrigated field beside the stream, threshing floors and a good deal of barren land. No trees are recorded. They had more than two hundred sheep, pairs of oxen for ploughing and a few beehives.³

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox parish church of Mousoulita is dedicated to the Apostle Luke. It was built around 1900, in the western part of the old settlement.⁴ According to the government publication of 2019 on the displaced municipalities and communities, the village elementary school was housed in its courtyard.⁵

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew cereals and fodder crops without irrigation and kept sheep and goats. The line of the Cyprus railway, which linked Ammochostos with Nicosia, passed near the village.⁶ The Co-operative Credit Society of Mousoulita was founded in 1956. According to the 2019 publication, during British rule a bridge about a hundred metres long was built north of the village over a tributary of the Pediaios, and the village football team, the Athletic Union of Mousoulita, did well in the local championship.⁷ According to the Encyclopaedia, the folk painter Kyriakos Koullis came from Mousoulita.⁸

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Mousoulita had 132 inhabitants in 1881, 127 in 1891, 137 in 1901, 182 in 1911 and 206 in 1921.⁹ In 1931 it had 201 inhabitants, all Christians, and in 1946 255, all Orthodox (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded religion only). In 1960 it had 219 inhabitants, all Greeks, and in 1973 156 Greeks. In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school had 11 pupils and one teacher.

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 115 inhabitants of Mousoulita signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters records 7 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or assisted the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Mousoulita was occupied by the Turkish army and its Greek population was ethnically cleansed. Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the inhabitants from returning. One inhabitant of the village, a soldier, was killed at Assia.

The 2009 list records the church of the Apostle Luke as a mosque. According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, the occupation authorities illegally converted it into a mosque after 1974, and it was used as such until a new mosque was built in the village around 2017. Its crosses have been removed. Of the cemetery, which lies outside the village, only traces of the foundations of the wall and of the grave crosses remain.¹⁰