Horafia

[florence]

As I look through my books on Castellorizo It is common to find people sitting in Horafia Square. Can anyone please give me any background on this location, why it is named and maybe events in the past that took place here?

Thanks
Florence

[Administrator]

Florence,

The area known as the Horafia was originally just that - 'horafia' or fields where limited agriculture was undertaken. This was in the 18th century, when the town extended only halfway along the promontory known as Kavos. At this time, the only church in this area was the small church of Panaghia which today sits beside the church of St Spyridon in the square.

During this period, the island's cemetery was also located here (ie beyond the outskirts of the urbanised area) and it remained here until the end of the 19th century when a decision was taken, due to over-crowding, to re-locate it to the Niftis promontory. The more recent graves were moved to the new site, but most of the remains were re-interred in the ostothyke (ossuary) which is to be found at the rear of the church of St George (Ayios Yeorgios 'tou Louka' or 'tou Horafiou').

From the end of the Greek revolution, and starting with the construction of the Cathedral of Sts Constantine & Helen, the Horafia precinct became integrated into the town, and later construction, which included the boys and girls schools and the St George church, turned the area into a social, religious and educational hub for the islanders, a far cry from its long-forgotten agricultural role, or even its function as the site of the island's cemetery. Photos from the 1920s and 1930s, in particular, regularly show the islanders reveling in the square formed by these civic additions and the square has retained this civic function to this day.

Nicholas

[Administrator]

Further to the previous post, here are two aerial views of the Cathedral of Sts Constantine and Helene and the two schools - the first from 1916, and the second from 2009.





What is striking is that, apart from some changes in the surrounding dwellings, very little has changed in this section of the Horafia precinct despite the passage of many years.

Nicholas