Omorfita is a large, mixed suburb of Lefkosia, which is partly occupied. It lies 2 kilometres north of Lefkosia, at an elevation of 130 metres, and is almost joined to neighbouring Kaimakli. Since 1968 it has belonged within the municipal boundaries of Lefkosia.¹ In the 1960 census it had 6,350 inhabitants, of whom 1,133 were Greeks and 5,126 Turks.

Name

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, which cites Simos Menardos, the name comes from “Μορφίτης” (Morfitis), that is, someone who came from Morfou, with the article added: o Morfitis, Omorfitis, Omorfita. Menardos supposes that the settlement was founded by a man from Morfou or by a knight of the de Morpho family.² In the sources of the 15th century the village is written “Amorfita”, “Omorfites” and “Omorfita”, and on the map of the British officer Kitchener, in the 1880s, “Omorphita”.³ The British censuses of 1931 and 1946 record it under its Turkish name, which linked it with neighbouring Kaimakli.

Founding and first records

The first known written mention of Omorfita dates from 1460. The 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florios Voustronios writes that, when the troops of James II were approaching Lefkosia, the viscount of the city avoided passing through “Amorfita” so as not to be seen, and the soldiers took the road through the village to find him. The village, that is, lay on the road that led out of Lefkosia to the north.⁴

Frankish and Venetian rule

In the 1460s King James II gave Omorfita, together with Flasou, as a fief to brother Francesco Sabat. Voustronios mentions him again in 1473: after the death of James he was sent to Keryneia to receive the oath of allegiance to Queen Caterina Cornaro.⁵

At the end of the 15th century Omorfita was a royal village, that is, it belonged directly to the state and not to a feudal lord. In a Venetian statistical memorandum of the period, published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, “Casal Omorfita” is recorded among the royal villages, together with a settlement “Misochilepi”.⁶

Turkish rule

In the property survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Omorfita belonged to the district of Kythrea and is described as a mixed village, with Christian and Muslim owners. Forty-six property-holding households are recorded, with fields, twenty olive trees, about 340 sheep, cows and oxen for ploughing.⁷

British rule

In the first years of British rule Omorfita was one of the small suburbs on the low hills around Lefkosia. In the 20th century it grew quickly, because of its proximity to the capital. In the 1946 census the old village and a new housing settlement are recorded separately, and according to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia Omorfita expanded mainly to the north and west, towards the Lefkosia–Keryneia road, where the new parish of Neapoli took shape.⁸

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox church of Omorfita, in the centre of the old village, is dedicated to Saint Demetrianos, bishop of Chytroi, that is, of neighbouring Kythrea, who is regarded as the protector of the suburb. It was built in 1902. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the British researcher Rupert Gunnis noted in it in 1936 icons and remains of an older building.⁹ The Greek Orthodox cemetery lay about 500 metres north-west of Agios Dimitrianos.¹⁰

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Omorfita had 339 inhabitants in 1881, 348 in 1891, 413 in 1901, 507 in 1911 and 585 in 1921.¹¹ In the 1931 census Omorfita had 851 inhabitants, 405 Christians and 446 Muslims. By 1946 the population had almost tripled: it had 2,252 inhabitants, of whom 1,236 were Orthodox, 995 Muslims and 21 others (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). The Orthodox were the majority mainly in the new housing settlement, while in the old village the Muslims were slightly more numerous.

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, in 1958 Greek inhabitants of Omorfita were violently driven from their homes.¹² In the 1960 census Omorfita had 6,350 inhabitants, 1,133 Greeks and 5,126 Turks, as well as 23 Armenians, 10 British and a few others. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, with the Turkish insurrection of December 1963 Omorfita became the scene of armed clashes, and armed Turks drove out part of its Greek inhabitants.¹³ In the 1973 census 2,197 inhabitants were recorded and no Turks.

National struggles

In the Enosis plebiscite of 1950, 812 inhabitants signed in the parish of Omorfita. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 5 Greek inhabitants of Omorfita who took part in or supported the Struggle.

During the years of the EOKA struggle the British authorities had an interrogation centre at Omorfita, where the EOKA fighter Kyriakos Matsis was also held in 1956.¹⁴

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 the greater part of Omorfita was captured by the Turkish army, and a section of it lies in the buffer zone.¹⁵ Part of its population suffered ethnic cleansing. The president of the Cyprus Red Cross testified to the European Commission of Human Rights that, according to the information the organisation received, in the second phase of the Turkish operation inhabitants of Omorfita and other villages were expelled en masse towards the ceasefire line.¹⁶ Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the return of the inhabitants.

Two inhabitants of Omorfita, both soldiers, were recorded as missing, and their remains have not been located to this day; they were lost in the areas of Agios Ermolaos and Voni. At Omorfita seven dead of 1974 are recorded, five soldiers and two civilians, who were killed or fatally wounded in the suburb and its area, as far as Voreios Polos.

The church of Agios Dimitrianos lies inside a military camp: it was desecrated and is used as a storeroom. The Greek Orthodox cemetery, abandoned since then, is today in ruins and the graves cannot be made out.¹⁷