Tremetousia (Tremethousia) is a mixed community in the occupied district of Larnaka. It lies 24 kilometres south-east of Lefkosia, at an altitude of 100 metres, in the plain of the Mesaoria. It is built on the site of the ancient city of Tremithous, whose bishop in the 4th century was Saint Spyridon, and the saint’s monastery stands in the village. In the 1960 census it had 576 inhabitants, of whom 346 were Greeks and 230 Turks.¹

Name

The village keeps, in altered form, the name of the ancient city. The 2nd-century Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemy writes it “Tremithous”, and the church sources “Trimythous” or “Trimithous”. The 6th-century Greek lexicographer Stephanus of Byzantium explains that the city was named after the terebinth trees that grew around it, “which the Cypriots call tremithoi”. He also records an older explanation: it was said that when Aphrodite set foot on the place, the ground shook at the presence of the goddess, that is, it “trembled”, and so the place got its name. The 19th-century Cypriot scholar Athanasios Sakellarios notes that in Cyprus the terebinth was still called “tremithia” or “trimithia” and its fruit “trimithin”.²

In the medieval sources the village appears as “Trimithussa”, “Trimithusia” and “Trimithussia” in Italian, and as “la Tremetossie” and “Tremithosse” in French. The official place-name index of Cyprus (the Gazetteer) writes it “Tremetousia” and records the ancient site “Treminthoi” on its land.³

Founding and first records

Among the earliest written records of Tremithous is that of Ptolemy, who lists it among the inland cities of Cyprus, with Chytroi and Tamassos. Stephanus of Byzantium calls it a village, whose inhabitants were called “Tremithousioi” and “Tremithopolitai”. In the 6th century Hierocles lists it among the cities of Cyprus.⁴

The settlement was most probably never abandoned. After the ancient city and the bishopric, the village is recorded under the same name in 1191, in 1196 and in the 15th century, and the church of Saint Spyridon was built and rebuilt on the same spot from the 4th to the 18th century.⁵

Archaeological sites

In 1883 the German archaeologist Max Ohnefalsch-Richter carried out a short excavation for the Cyprus Museum in the necropolis of Tremithous, north-west of the village. It produced unpainted pottery of the Ptolemaic Greek period, among it a vessel with the graffito “XAPHΣ”.⁶

Sakellarios, who visited the village in the late 19th century, describes many rock-cut tombs, in which glass and clay vessels of the Roman period and inscriptions had been found. Just before the village he saw caves and cut rocks, which the villagers called “latomes”, where the quarries of the ancient city most probably lay. The Gazetteer records the place names “Latomes” and “Latomi” on the village land.⁷

In 1966, during the restoration of the church of Saint Spyridon, the Cypriot archaeologist Athanasios Papageorghiou made soundings inside and outside the church for the Department of Antiquities. They exposed the stylobates of a three-aisled basilica, about 26 by 15 metres, with a narthex and an atrium, and a mosaic floor with a Greek verse inscription naming the mosaicist Karterios and a Sphyridon “of holy memory”, who ordered the mosaic. The basilica is dated to the end of the 4th century, shortly after the death of Saint Spyridon. Over it were built in turn a second church with piers in place of the columns, a third, wider one, and finally the present church.⁸

Antiquity

The earliest evidence for the people of Tremithous is the inscriptions seen by Sakellarios. Three were written in the Cypriot syllabic script, in which the Greeks of Cyprus wrote their language before the Ptolemaic Greek (“Hellenistic”) period. In his reading, one is a dedication to Apollo by a certain Timalkos, son of Zoteas. The pottery from the necropolis belongs to the Ptolemaic Greek period.⁹

In the Roman period Tremithous was an inland city of Cyprus. The epitaphs from its tombs are in Greek, as everywhere in the eastern Mediterranean, and the dead bear Greek names:

Ὀνάσι χρηστέ.

Σύμμαχε χρηστὲ χαῖρε.

That is: “Onasis, good one” and “Symmachos, good one, farewell”.¹⁰

Greek medieval period (“Byzantium”)

In the early Greek medieval period Tremithous was the seat of a bishopric. Its best-known bishop was Saint Spyridon. The 5th-century church historians Socrates, Sozomen and Rufinus write that he was a simple man, a shepherd, married, renowned for the holiness of his life. As bishop of Tremithous he took part in the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325, and his signature also survives in the acts of the Council of Serdica. The 15th-century Cypriot chronicler Leontios Machairas names him among the holy bishops of Cyprus. His tomb was in the church of Tremetousia, and his relics were later taken to Constantinople and from there to Corfu, where they are kept to this day.¹¹

The bishopric lasted for centuries. The bishops of Tremithous Theopompos, Theodoros and Georgios signed at the ecumenical councils of 381, 680–681 and 787. In the 10th century the emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos lists Trimythos among the cities of Cyprus, noting “whence Saint Spyridon”.¹²

In May 1191 King Richard the Lionheart of England, on his way to the Holy Land, took Cyprus from its Greek ruler, Isaac Komnenos. According to the 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron, Isaac’s army was at Tremetousia, and the battle was fought there. Both sides fought bravely, but the Greeks were defeated, and Richard advanced as far as Lefkosia. The 19th-century French historian Louis de Mas Latrie held that here, in the plain of the Mesaoria, the island made its greatest effort of defence. He also notes that the later tradition that Richard razed the ancient city grew out of its ruins, which the island’s scholars attributed to the battle.¹³

Frankish rule, Venetian rule

The Greek bishopric of Tremithous was abolished under Frankish rule. Bustron writes that its area, like that of other Greek bishoprics, was placed under the Latin archbishop of Lefkosia. As early as 1196 a bull of Pope Celestine III grants the Latin archbishop the tithes of the area of “la Tremetossie”.¹⁴

Bustron records that in the 1460s King James II gave Tremetousia as a fief, “Trimithussia e pertinentie”, that is, with everything that belonged to it, to Giffren Babin. The Babin family had belonged to the nobility of the kingdom since the 14th century, when Raymond Babin was one of its great officers.¹⁵

Turkish rule

In the land survey made by the Ottoman administration in 1832/33, which recorded only those who held property, Tremetousia appears as a village of mixed population with 25 property-holding households. The fields lay mostly fallow, and there were smaller plots of cotton, gardens, threshing floors and 35 olive trees. The households owned more than 550 sheep and goats and a few oxen. The survey also records the monastery of Saint Spyridon, with property of its own.¹⁶

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox parish church of the village, dedicated to Saint Spyridon, was built in the 20th century.

The monastery of Saint Spyridon stands on the site of the 4th-century basilica. The 2009 list of churches in the occupied areas compiled by the Church of Cyprus dates its church to the 5th, the 8th and the 11th to 18th centuries. The third church on the site was badly damaged towards the end of Venetian rule, and the present one was built in its place in the first half of the 18th century. According to the Holy Metropolis of Trimythous, the church was renovated in 1729, its templon is of the 17th century, and its sanctuary doors, of 1634, bear the signature of the painter Pavlos. Beside the sanctuary stood the sarcophagus that the villagers honoured as the saint’s first tomb. Until 1974 the monastery was the Archbishopric’s Conservation Centre for icons and works of church art. The monastery and its church, as well as the old chapel of the monastery, are Ancient Monuments.¹⁷

The church of the Panagia in the village is also an Ancient Monument.

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, before 1974 the villagers grew mainly cereals and fodder crops, in an area of low rainfall, and stock-raising was well developed: in 1973 they kept more than 1,100 sheep, 400 goats and 545 cows. The village had the Second Co-operative Credit Society of Tremetousia.¹⁸

Education

In the school year 1973–74 the Greek primary school of Tremetousia had 40 pupils and two teachers.

Population

The population of the village grew steadily. According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, Tremetousia had 139 inhabitants in 1881, 177 in 1891, 204 in 1901, 329 in 1911 and 376 in 1921.¹⁹ In 1931 it had 464 inhabitants, 265 Christians and 199 Muslims, and in 1946 490, of whom 292 were Orthodox and 198 Muslims (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 576 inhabitants, 346 Greeks and 230 Turks, and in 1973 361 Greeks and around 250 Turks (estimate).

National struggles

In the 1950 plebiscite for union with Greece 179 villagers signed, essentially all the adult Greek inhabitants. In the EOKA struggle a group was organised in Tremetousia by the fighters of neighbouring Athienou, who also supplied it with shotguns. The EOKA Register of Fighters lists 9 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or assisted the Struggle.²⁰

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Tremetousia 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.

Three inhabitants of Tremetousia were recorded as missing. Two were civilians who disappeared in the village itself, and their remains have not been found to this day. The third was a soldier who disappeared at Assia; his remains have been found and identified. One civilian inhabitant of Tremetousia was killed elsewhere, between Arsos and Lysi.

The occupation authorities illegally converted the monastery of Saint Spyridon into a military camp, and the site is a forbidden military zone. According to the Holy Metropolis of Trimythous, more than 150 icons and valuable manuscripts disappeared from the monastery after the invasion.²¹

The refugees of Tremetousia founded the Saint Spyridon Refugee Association of Tremetousia in 1998, and in 2000 the community was twinned with Corfu, where the saint’s relics are kept.²²