Pano Zodeia is a large Greek community in the occupied part of the district of Lefkosia. It lies 4 kilometres south-east of Morfou, at an elevation of 100 metres, in the western Mesaoria. It is almost joined to Kato Zodeia, half a kilometre to the north-west, and the two villages lie on the main Lefkosia–Morfou road.¹ In the 1960 census it had 1,346 inhabitants, of whom 1,345 were Greeks.

Name

The origin of the name is not known. In the Venetian memorandum of the late 15th century published by the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, the village is written “Apano Zodia”, that is, Apano Zodia.²

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the two communities were known by the common name “Ζώδκιες” (Zodkies). The same encyclopaedia records, from the folklorist Nearchos Clerides, a tradition of the inhabitants about the name: in a cave on the land of Pano Zodeia there lived a “ζώδκιον” (zodkion), that is, a ghost in the Cypriot dialect, in the form of a dragon, which ate those who passed by. Nine men of the village made it drunk with wine and meze and burned it.³

Founding and first records

Pano Zodeia is recorded for the first time as a separate village in the Venetian memorandum of the late 15th century, where “Casal Apano Zodia” and “Casal Cato Zodia” appear as two villages.⁴ The older mentions of a single Zodeia, without distinction, belong to the text of Kato Zodeia.

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the old settlement of Pano Zodeia was densely built, and in the last years before 1974 it began to spread along the Lefkosia–Morfou road, towards Kato Zodeia and towards Astromeritis.⁵

Venetian rule

In the first years of Venetian rule Pano Zodeia had no feudal lord: it was one of the twelve royal villages of the bailiwick of Morfou, which belonged directly to the state, together with Kato Zodeia, Morfou, Peristerona and Lefka.⁶

Turkish rule

In 1788 Archimandrite Kyprianos, who wrote the history of Cyprus, already speaks of “two Zodias”.⁷

In the property survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Pano Zodeia is recorded as a Christian village with 32 property-holding households, more than Kato Zodeia, which had 23. Their land was almost all fields, about 1,100 donums, with threshing floors, and only a few olive trees and two almond trees are recorded. They had 363 sheep and goats, 20 oxen and 19 cows.⁸

Churches and monasteries

The parish church of the village, at the southern edge of the old settlement, is dedicated to the Archangel Michael and dates from the 19th century. The bell tower was added in 1908. According to the inhabitants, as recorded by Cyprus Religious Heritage, the church was built on the site of an older monastery of the Archangel Michael.⁹

In the centre of the old settlement stands the church of Agios Georgios, of the 18th century. Around it most probably lay the old cemetery, which closed in 1916; the new cemetery lies today in a semi-military zone, and Cyprus Religious Heritage was unable to visit it.¹⁰ The British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the monuments of Cyprus in 1918, mentions the two churches among the churches of the two Zodeias.¹¹ On the village’s land there was also the newer chapel of the Panagia Afenga, and the official gazetteer of place names of Cyprus (Gazetteer) records there the place-name “Palia Ekklisia” (“old church”).¹²

Economy and society

The land of Pano Zodeia was flat. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, boreholes and the waters of the Serrachis allowed irrigated crops to expand, and before 1974 the inhabitants grew mainly citrus, vegetables and cereals. In 1973 they kept 1,025 sheep and goats and 13 cows.¹³ In 1951 the Pano Zodia Co-operative Grocery was founded.

Education

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, around 1875–76 children from Pano Zodeia too attended the monitorial school of the teacher Neofytos Papadopoulos at Kato Zodeia.¹⁴

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 376 inhabitants in 1881, 424 in 1891, 528 in 1901 and 633 in 1911.¹⁵ In 1931 Pano Zodeia had 785 inhabitants, all of them Christians, and in 1946 1,073, all Orthodox (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 1,346 inhabitants, 1,345 Greeks and one Turk, and in 1973 1,630 Greeks.

National struggles

In the Enosis plebiscite of 1950, 626 inhabitants of Pano Zodeia signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters lists 91 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The EOKA fighter Nikolaos Giangou came from Pano Zodeia.¹⁶

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Pano Zodeia 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.

Six inhabitants of Pano Zodeia, 4 soldiers and 2 civilians, have been missing since 1974. The two civilians were lost in the village itself. The 4 soldiers were lost elsewhere: at Kyra near Morfou, in the area of Agios Georgios in the district of Keryneia, in the Myrtou–Diorios area and on the Keryneia–Panagra road. The remains of one have been located and identified; the other five are still missing. In Pano Zodeia and its area five more people were killed: one soldier and four civilians.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the church of the Archangel Michael into a mosque, in 1976,¹⁷ and the church of Agios Georgios into a dwelling. The chapel of the Panagia Afenga was demolished by the Turkish army.