Trimithi is a Greek community of the occupied district of Keryneia. It lies 6 kilometres west of Keryneia, at an altitude of 60 metres, on the northern slopes of the Pentadaktylos, near Karmi and Agios Georgios. At the entrance to the village stands the church of Panagia Trimithiotissa, whose oldest parts go back to the 12th century. In the 1960 census it had 301 inhabitants, all of them Greeks.

Name

Panagia Trimithiotissa is also known locally as «Χρυσοτριμινθιώτισσα», the form recorded by the official place-name index of Cyprus (the Gazetteer).¹

Founding and first records

The first written mention that most probably concerns Trimithi dates from the 15th century. The 16th-century Cypriot chronicler Florio Bustron preserves the list of the fiefs distributed by King James II in the years 1464–1468, and in it a village “Trimithi” is given to Ardito de Casanova. Other villages with a similar name are written “Trimithia” or “Trimithussia” in the same sources.²

Churches and monasteries

The Greek Orthodox church of the village is dedicated to Saint Charalambos and stands in the centre of the old village, on the road to Karmi. The 2009 list of occupied churches of the Church of Cyprus dates it to the 18th–19th century. On its site there was an older church of the 16th century, which the French art historian Camille Enlart saw in 1896. The English architect George Jeffery writes in 1918 that of that church there remained in the outer walls the Renaissance-style doorways and, on the south side, an even older recess with the tomb of the founder. The church is an Ancient Monument.³

At the entrance to the village, on the road from Keryneia and beside the cemetery, stands the church of Panagia Trimithiotissa or Chrysotriminthiotissa, also an Ancient Monument. The 2009 list dates it to the 12th and 19th centuries.⁴ According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, the 19th-century church is a reworking of a much older and smaller church on the same site, and it was then for a short time the main church of a small monastery, which had about 25 skales of land and 236 olive trees.⁵

Economy and society

According to the Great Cyprian Encyclopaedia, at the end of the 19th century many Greeks of the village worked on the estates of a Turkish judge, Hatzichavouz, who had a large area of land in the region. Several were labourers and farmers whom he had brought from the district of Pafos; they stayed at Trimithi and acquired properties of their own. Before 1974 the inhabitants grew cereals, olives, carobs and citrus, mainly lemon and citron trees, and in 1973 sixty stock-breeders kept sheep, goats and many poultry.⁶

Population

According to the same encyclopaedia, the population of Trimithi increased almost continuously from the end of the 19th century, mainly because the village was close to Keryneia: it had 95 inhabitants in 1881, 120 in 1891, 122 in 1901, 171 in 1911 and 190 in 1921.⁷ In 1931 it had 143 inhabitants, 135 Christians and 8 Muslims, and in 1946 237, of whom 232 were Orthodox and 5 Muslims (the 1931 and 1946 censuses recorded only religion). In 1960 it had 301 inhabitants, all Greeks, and in 1973 353 Greeks. In the school year 1973–74 the village’s Greek elementary school had 21 pupils and one teacher.

National struggles

In the 1950 Enosis plebiscite 124 inhabitants of Trimithi signed. The Register of EOKA Fighters records 15 Greek inhabitants of the village who took part in or supported the Struggle.

The Turkish invasion of 1974

During the Turkish invasion of 1974 Trimithi 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.

One inhabitant of Trimithi, a civilian, was arrested in the village and recorded as missing; his remains have not been located to this day. One more civilian inhabitant was killed elsewhere, at an unknown place. On the land of Trimithi five people were killed, two soldiers and three civilians, all in the village and its area.

The church of Agios Charalambos was desecrated, looted and is used as a pottery workshop. Panagia Trimithiotissa was desecrated and looted, and the illegal Turkish authorities allowed British nationals to use it as a gallery and architect’s office.