Panagra is a small Greek community in the occupied district of Keryneia. It lies 23 kilometres west of Keryneia, at an elevation of 40 metres, where the Lefkosia–Myrtou–Keryneia road passes through the western part of the Pentadaktylos range.¹ On its land grows the endemic Cyprus tulip (Tulipa cypria).² In the 1960 census it had 86 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Name

The official place-name index of Cyprus (the Gazetteer) writes the name in the plural, “Πάναγρα, τά” (Panagra), and records the stream that passes by the village under the same name.³ The origin of the name is not certain.

Founding and first records

Panagra is not found in the lists of villages of Frankish and Venetian rule preserved by the 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florios Voustronios and the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, nor in the Ottoman property survey of 1832/33. About one kilometre north of the village, on its land, the Gazetteer records the small settlement of Kremma tou Kamilou, near the cliff called Kremmos tou Kamilou. The settlement was counted separately in the censuses of 1931, 1946 and 1960.⁴

Antiquity

Mas Latrie placed ancient Panakron east of Cape Kormakitis, in the area where Panagra lies.⁵ The Greek poet of the 5th century AD Nonnus, when he lists the places of Cyprus, mentions its sanctuary:

καὶ τέμενος βαθύδενδρον ὀρεσσαύλοιο Πανάκρου

that is, “and the thickly wooded sanctuary of mountain-dwelling Panakron”.⁶ The 6th-century lexicographer Stephanus of Byzantium also records “Panakron, a city of Cyprus”, whose location, as the 19th-century Greek philologist Athanasios Sakellarios noted, we do not know.⁷

At Panagra lies one of the passes of the Keryneia range, which may already have been in use in the pre-Greek period. The archaeologist Jennifer Webb, who studied the metal finds of the pre-Greek tombs of Lapithos, links their copper with settlements near the mines of north-western Cyprus, such as Ampelikou. From there, according to her, the metals could reach Lapithos either by ship around Kormakitis or overland, through the Panagra pass.⁸

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox parish church of the village, in its small centre, is dedicated to the Apostle Andrew and was built in the 20th century.⁹ According to the Union of Communities of Keryneia District, the saint’s feast was celebrated splendidly every year on 30 November.¹⁰

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew cereals, olives and carobs, without irrigation, while stock-breeding was limited. Most of the village’s land was uncultivated and covered with wild vegetation.¹¹

Population

Panagra always remained a small village. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, it had 43 inhabitants in 1881, 44 in 1891, 45 in 1901, 53 in 1911 and 69 in 1921, with no separate figures for Kremma tou Kamilou, a settlement of Panagra.¹² In the censuses of 1931 and 1946 Panagra, with 49 and 60 inhabitants, and Kremma tou Kamilou, with 33 and 23, were counted separately, all of them Christians (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 Panagra had 86 inhabitants, all of them Greeks, and in 1973 96 Greeks. In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school had 14 pupils and one teacher.

National struggles

In the Enosis plebiscite of 1950, 46 inhabitants of Panagra signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists one Greek inhabitant of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Panagra was captured by the Turkish army and its Greek population suffered ethnic cleansing. Since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the return of the inhabitants.

In the village and its area four dead of 1974 are recorded, two soldiers and two civilians.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the church of the Apostle Andrew into a mosque: all the crosses were removed and a minaret was built next to it. The village cemetery, 400 metres west of the church, is in ruins: its enclosure wall has collapsed and the pieces of the crosses are scattered, so that the graves can no longer be recognised.¹³