The greek Village Monagri that can be found in the lemesos district is located 450 meters high and approximately 20 kilometres north – west of Lemesos between he Lemesos-Platres road and the Kouris river. Nearby the village ther are other villages of similar size such as Doros, Saint George, Lania, Silikou and Alassa. The mixed name of the village comes from the word “moni” that means monastery and the word “agrin” that means small valley evidence that proves that the village is built on monastery land though it is not known until today to which monastery it belonged to, since Byzantine times and their names are Saint Mary from Amasgous (women monastery), and Archangels / Michael monastery. It seems that the village was created as a small monastery area with farms belonging to the monastery since the Byzantine year. During the Franks occupancy it was an area that beloned to the Franks and it can be seen on old maps with the name Monag or Monagri. There are also mentioned many medieval famies to which the village might have belonged to, such as George the Bistronious, Alex Kappadoki and Balian Salaha. When the Turks occupied the area the residence of the village became persecution by Secret Christians due to the Turks and during different times they were operating small schools like the one of Archangels with the Monk Ilariona, the Kitiou bishop Meletios the 3rd, and the Philip’s Poullakas that he was teaching in the country. After the Turkish occupancy the Cypriot brotherhood of Egypt created a regular school with its first teacher a person by name Stavrakis. Beside the two monasteries the village also has two other churches, the main one that is dedicated to Saint George and is an old church that renovated in 1872. Taking as evidence a Saint Mary’s picture it seems that it was built in the 16 century. The other church is the Saint Mary of Essokiras and is located in central village. This church is also an old church and it was also renovated very recently. It is a fact that people in the last 100 years were lighting their candles in the church’s ruins. Monagri with a relatively medium volume of rains belongs to the traditional Grape villages. Its people which number between to 200 and 360 are mainly involved with growing almond trees, olive trees and small farm units. Monagri today with Father Christopher Papanastasiou and mayor Costa Nikodimou has 200 residences, and it manages to keep the customs and the history that comes from the older members of the village. Monagri residences produce the traditional palouze, sousouko, trachana, Easter flaounes and many other recipes. During August 15 they produce home made bread and sausages.
