Skylloura is a mixed community of the occupied district of Lefkosia. It lies 19 kilometres west of Lefkosia and 16 kilometres east of Morfou, at an altitude of 160 metres, in the western central plain. It is built beside the road that leads north-west from Lefkosia towards Myrtou and Kormakitis, and its land is crossed by the Ovgos.¹ In the 1960 census it had 793 inhabitants, of whom 504 were Greeks and 289 Turks.

Name

The origin of the name has not been studied by a linguist. The inhabitants explained it with a tradition recorded at the beginning of the 20th century by the historian of the Church of Cyprus John Hackett. A nobleman once had a dog sick with mange, which was cured when its master happened to wash it with water from a sulphur spring of the village, and from this incident the village took its name. The spring was inside the church of the Panagia, which the inhabitants called Skylouriotissa, and those suffering from skin diseases resorted to it.²

In the mapping of Cyprus by the British officer Kitchener, in the first years of British rule, the village is written “Skilloura”.³

Founding and first records

Skylloura already existed in the years of Frankish rule. The 16th-century Cypriot historian Stephanos Lusignan includes it in his list of the Latin priories of the island, that is the small monasteries and church estates of the Latin Church.⁴ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Lusignan mentions there a three-aisled Latin church dedicated to the Panagia, which the Encyclopaedia identifies with the village church of Panagia Eleousa.⁵

Turkish rule

In the land survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Skylloura is recorded as a village of mixed population with 21 households with property. Their holdings were almost entirely fields, some 700 donums, with threshing floors and a few wheat fields, and only 45 olive trees and one carob tree. The greater part of their property was livestock: some 610 sheep and goats, and oxen for ploughing.⁶

Churches and monasteries

The oldest church of the village is dedicated to Panagia Eleousa; the official gazetteer of place names of Cyprus (Gazetteer) calls it Panagia Chryseleousa.⁷ It was originally three-aisled, but of the three aisles only one survived, and in 1911 it was renovated.⁸ The British architect George Jeffery, curator of the ancient monuments of Cyprus, noted in 1918 that the renovation had altered its medieval character. Two medieval ribbed cross vaults had remained, however, and buttresses copying the west front of the cathedral of Lefkosia, while the semicircular apse had the usual form of the Greek Orthodox churches of the island. Around the church lay the old cemetery, which closed in 1915; the new one is opposite, on the other side of the road.⁹

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the monoculture of cereals dominated the land of Skylloura, just as in the 1832/33 survey fields were almost all of the inhabitants’ land.¹⁰ In 1928 the Skylloura Co-operative Credit Society was founded, and in 1959 the village’s Co-operative Grocery.

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 272 inhabitants in 1881, 387 in 1891, 487 in 1901, 477 in 1911 and 511 in 1921.¹¹ In 1931 Skylloura had 506 inhabitants, 344 Christians and 162 Muslims, and in 1946 598, of whom 384 were Orthodox and 214 Muslims (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 793 inhabitants, 504 Greeks and 289 Turks, and in 1973 533 Greeks. In the school year 1973–74 the village’s Greek elementary school had 44 pupils and two teachers.

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 230 inhabitants of Skylloura signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters records 12 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

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

Two inhabitants of Skylloura, both civilians, were recorded as missing and were lost at Katokopia; their remains have not been located to this day. One more inhabitant, a civilian, was killed at Karavas.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the church of Panagia Eleousa into a mosque.¹²