Templos is a small, mainly Turkish community of the occupied district of Keryneia. It lies 3 kilometres west of Keryneia, at an altitude of 60 metres, in the coastal plain. Its land was narrow and long: it rose to the ridge of the Pentadaktylos and came down to the sea, opposite the islet of Glykiotissa.¹ In the 1960 census it had 227 inhabitants, of whom 61 were Greeks and 161 Turks.

Name

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, which cites Simos Menardos, the village took its name from the order of the Knights Templar, who in the West were called Templiers, that is “of the Temple”, and had here one of the administrative centres of their estates in Cyprus.² The documents of the time confirm it. In a document of 1468 the order’s property in the village is called “commanderie dou Temple”, and in another of 1472 the village itself is called “casale Templi”, that is “the village of the Temple”. The 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie, who published the two documents, writes the name “Tempros”.³

Founding and first records

The oldest written record of Templos found dates from 1313. The 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron relates that on 7 November 1313, in the cathedral of Lefkosia, the pope’s envoy read the letters of Pope Clement V by which the property of the Templars, whose order had been abolished, was given to the Knights Hospitaller. Among the villages handed over then Bustron lists the “casal Themplos a Cerines”, that is the village of Templos of Keryneia, which elsewhere in his work he writes “Templos”.⁴

Frankish rule

In the years of Frankish rule, then, Templos belonged not to a nobleman but to a military order: first to the Templars and from 1313 to the Knights Hospitaller, who had their seat on Rhodes. The Hospitallers organised their estates in Cyprus into commanderies, that is administrative units headed by a knight. According to the British architect George Jeffery, who recorded the historic monuments of Cyprus at the beginning of the 20th century, there were three: the Grand Commandery, the Lesser Commandery and the commandery of Templos, which had its centre in the village.⁵

In March 1468 King James II acknowledged that he owed the Hospitallers 126 ducats for what he and his men had taken from the revenues of the commanderies of Foinikas, in Pafos, and of Templos. In 1472 the Grand Commander of Cyprus and another knight, Hisbert de Villeneuve, disagreed over whether Templos was a separate commandery or part of the Grand Commandery. They agreed that Villeneuve would keep the village for life and that after his death it would be joined to the Grand Commandery, and the agreement was ratified by the Grand Master of the order on Rhodes.⁶

Turkish rule

In the land survey carried out by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who owned property, Templos is recorded as a mixed village, with 10 households with property. The owners had mainly wheat fields and almost 600 trees, 381 olive trees and 215 carob trees, and an olive press operated in the village. They also had 70 goats, a few oxen and cows, and four camels.⁷

Churches and monasteries

On the village’s land stands the Greek Orthodox chapel of Panagia Faneromeni. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, which cites the British researcher Rupert Gunnis, who recorded the monuments of Cyprus in the 1930s, it lies about 4 kilometres south of the village, below the peak of Agios Ilarion.⁸

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 cereals, fodder crops, olives, carobs and a few citrus were grown on the village’s land, as olives and carobs already were in the 1832/33 survey. Large areas remained uncultivated, and to the south a small part of the state forest of Karmi fell within the village boundaries.⁹

Population

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the village had 136 inhabitants in 1881, 137 in 1891, 131 in 1901, 135 in 1911 and 125 in 1921.¹⁰ In 1931 Templos had 118 inhabitants, 3 Christians and 115 Muslims, and in 1946 167, of whom 14 were Orthodox, 151 Muslims and 2 others (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 227 inhabitants, 61 Greeks, 161 Turks and 5 English. According to the same encyclopaedia, the Greek inhabitants were forced to abandon the village because of the events of the Turkish insurrection of 1963–64 and settled in Keryneia and in neighbouring Greek villages.¹¹ In 1973 the village had about 250 Turkish inhabitants (an estimate) and no Greeks.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

The Greek inhabitants of Templos had been forced to abandon the village because of the events of the Turkish insurrection of 1963–64. During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Templos was captured by the Turkish army, and since then the Turkish occupation forces and the illegal occupation authority prevent the return of the Greek inhabitants.

One dead of 1974 is recorded on the land of Templos, a soldier, who was killed in the village itself.

The chapel of Panagia Faneromeni now lies inside a Turkish military camp, and the 2009 list of occupied churches of the Church of Cyprus records it as inaccessible.