Marathovounos

Marathovounos (Greek: Μαραθόβουνος, Turkish: Ulukışla) is a village in the Famagusta District of central Cyprus.

[2][3] Marathovounos was built on a hillock called Vounos (Greek for hill) on the northern edge of the Massaoria plain.

In the early 1820s Greek Cypriots found refuge in the caves around the hillock of Vouno from Agia Paraskevi a nearby village to the north which had been established in 1571.

[5] This was after a wave of massacres that were inflicted on the Greek Cypriots throughout the island by the Ottoman administrators who feared that there would be a similar uprising for independence as it occurred in Greece in 1821.

[8] The pressure on the Greeks from the Turkish authorities forced young couples to take the decision to shift to spare themselves the vilification and oppression.

[10] The main income of Marathovounos’ was from agriculture through the growth of wheat and barley and the farming of sheep and cattle.

[citation needed] In 1976 and 1977 Turkish families immigrated from the Kozan and Feke districts of the Adana region of Turkey.

[16] People from Marathovounos who have found international fame include the modern painter Christophoros Sava (1924-1968)[17] and the late Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Thyateira and Great Britain, Gregorios.

File:The remnants of the Church of Profitis Ilias in Marathovounos, Cyprus, 2012. Photo:C. M.
What remains of the Chapel of Timios Stauvros which is attached to the Greek Orthodox cemetery of Marathovounos, Cyprus. Note the cemetery headstones which were scrapped up and dumped within its walls.
The headstone of Marika (surname broken off) in the Timios Stauvros Cemetery in Marathovounos, Cyprus 2012.
Marathovounos viewed from the northern Tziados approach to the village. Note the post-1974 Turkish occupation, new Mosque on the left and the remains of the Church of Profitis Ilias on the right.