Peristerona is a Greek community in the occupied district of Ammochostos. It lies 20 kilometres northwest of Ammochostos, at an elevation of 30 metres, on the plain of the Mesaoria. It is almost joined to neighbouring Pigi, and the two villages are known together as Peristeronopigi; they also shared their elementary school and their co-operative society.¹ In the 1960 census it had 571 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Name

The 15th-century Cypriot chronicler Leontios Machairas writes the village “Peristerona of the Mesaria”, that is, of the Mesaoria, to distinguish it from the other Peristeronas of the island. The 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron writes it “Peristerona del Pian”, that is, of the plain, and “Peristerona della Massaria”.²

Founding and first records

Peristerona is linked with Saint Anastasios. Machairas records the tradition of the three hundred saints who came to Cyprus from Palestine, scattered over the island and lived as hermits in caves, and names among them Saint Anastasios the Miracle-worker at Peristerona of the Mesaoria. Bustron writes the same.³

Frankish rule, Venetian rule

In the 1460s King James II gave Peristerona as a fief. In Bustron’s list it appears twice: once to Alupo de Beldaghe and once to Franceschin Camus, together with three other villages.⁴ Alupo, whom the 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie also writes Lupo de Beldari, was one of the two hostages James gave as a guarantee to the Genoese of Ammochostos, in the terms for the surrender of the town to him.⁵

At the end of the 15th century, shortly after Cyprus passed to the Venetians, Peristerona was a royal village, that is, it belonged directly to the state and not to a feudal lord. In a Venetian statistical memorandum published by Mas Latrie it is recorded together with its neighbour: “Casal Pigi et Peristerona”.⁶

Turkish rule

In the property survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Peristerona is described as a mixed village, with 56 property-owning households and a church. The monastery of Agios Anastasios is recorded separately on its land. The fields were mostly cotton and grain fields, with a few olive and mulberry trees. The households had almost 900 sheep, cows, pairs of oxen for ploughing, and beehives.⁷

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox parish church of Peristerona is dedicated to Saint Anastasios and was built in 1953, directly east of the old church of the monastery of the same saint, in the centre of the double village.⁸

The church of the monastery of Agios Anastasios dates from the 18th century and is an Ancient Monument. According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, a church already stood there in the years of Turkish rule and was renovated in 1775; the saint’s tomb lies in its floor.⁹ According to the government publication of 2019 on the displaced municipalities and communities, it was rebuilt from its foundations by Saint Panaretos, who was born and grew up in Peristeronopigi, and the monastery served as the educational centre of the area.¹⁰ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, a great fair was held in the village on the saint’s feast day.¹¹

The village also has the chapels of the Panagia Faneromeni, which the 2009 list dates to the 6th and the 15th century, of Agios Georgios, of 1953, and of Agios Rinas, of the 20th century.

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the inhabitants grew cereals and fodder crops without irrigation, stock-breeding was fairly developed, and in earlier times the village was known for making sacks.¹² According to the 2019 publication, from 1935 the people of Peristeronopigi organised annual district livestock shows in the village.¹³ The Co-operative Credit Society of Peristeronopigi was founded in 1926.

Education

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, a school operated at Peristerona from 1875, in the monastery of Agios Anastasios, which no longer had monks. The first teacher was Georgios Efstratiou from Larnaca, who had taught before at Lefkoniko, where the children of Peristerona had until then gone to learn their letters; from 1875 children from the surrounding villages attended school at Peristerona.¹⁴ According to the 2019 publication, by 1974 69 teachers had studied from Peristeronopigi.¹⁵ In the school year 1973–74 the Greek elementary school of Peristeronopigi, shared by the two villages, had 251 pupils and eight teachers.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Peristerona had 450 inhabitants in 1881, 538 in 1891, 553 in 1901, 641 in 1911 and 693 in 1921.¹⁶ In 1931 it had 686 inhabitants, 476 Christians and 210 Muslims, and in 1946 693, of whom 507 were Orthodox and 186 Muslims (the censuses of 1931 and 1946 recorded religion only). In 1960 it had 571 inhabitants, all Greeks, and in 1973 566 Greeks.

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 331 inhabitants of Peristerona signed, practically all the adult Greek inhabitants. The Register of EOKA Fighters records 15 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or assisted the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Peristerona 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.

Nine inhabitants of Peristerona, three civilians and six soldiers, were recorded as missing. One disappeared in the village itself and the other eight elsewhere: two in neighbouring Pigi, and the rest at Keryneia, in the areas of Agios Epiktitos and Agios Georgios of Keryneia, at the sixth mile of the Karavas–Keryneia road, at Kefalovrysos in the area of Kapouti, and at Glykiotissa. The remains of four have been located and identified, while five are still missing. One person killed in 1974, a civilian, is recorded in the village itself. Four more inhabitants, three civilians and one soldier, were killed elsewhere: two in the area of Gaidouras, one in the area of Agios Pavlos in Nicosia and one at Vitsada.

According to Cyprus Religious Heritage, both churches of Agios Anastasios are in poor condition. The bells and crosses have been removed from the monastery church, its bell tower is held up provisionally by scaffolding, of its furnishings only a small part of the iconostasis remains, and the saint’s tomb in the floor is filled with plaster, stones, straw and bird droppings. In the new church almost all the entrances have been bricked up, the bells are missing, and of its furnishings only the stone iconostasis remains, without its icons.¹⁷

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko, moved by the tragedy of the occupation, wrote a poem centred on Peristerona of Ammochostos.¹⁸