Agios Epiphanios Soleas

Agios Epiphanios Soleas is a village of Nicosia in Cyprus and it is situated 59 kilometers southwest of Nicosia, 96 kilometers northwest of Larnaca, 63 kilometers north of Limassol and 102 kilometers northeast of Paphos.

Built very close to Linou (3 km) and Flasou (2 km), Agios Epiphanios Soleas was a purely Turkish Cypriot village until the Turkish invasion of 1974. Today it is an abandoned settlement as its Turkish Cypriot inhabitants have moved to the occupied regions of northern Cyprus.

According to historical evidence, during the Ottoman domination and specifically in the 17th-18th century, the village of Solea began the attempt to islamise the population of the region. That period of poverty and oppression of the population constituted the ideal opportunity for rich Muslims to influence Christian people by offering them work and better living conditions, while Lefka, which was the administrative center of the area, was almost completely islamised. Under the pressure, some villagers changed their religion, among them the inhabitants of Agios Epiphanios Soleas. Later, during the 1963-64 inter-communal riots, when the Turkish Cypriots left the mixed villages and gathered in self-governing enclaves, this community was the only one in which Turkish Cypriots remained. Attila and the mutual exchange of populations that followed the invasion of 1974 (the Turkish Cypriots moved to the occupied areas and the Greek Cypriots moved to the free areas) led to the desertion of the village.