Overview

Epiphanios was born in 1854, in Agios Ambrosios and at a young age he entered as a novice in the Holy Monastery of Trooditissa, where he remained until the early 1870s, when he assumed the duties of a hierodeacon in the church of Agia Napa in Limassol. At the same time, he studied at the Greek School of the city, under the renowned teacher Andreas Themistocleous, and supplemented the grammatical knowledge he had acquired during his stay at Trooditissa. He then taught at the School, as an assistant to Themistocleous, for five years, and subsequently, in the early 1880s, he was sent by Bishop Kyprianos of Kition to the village of Monagri, where he served for three years as a priest and teacher at the School founded there by the Cypriot Brotherhood of Egypt. Later, for some time, he served as administrator of the sacred property of the abandoned monastery of Holy Cross Omodos. Finally, in 1888, at the request of his old confreres, he returned to the monastery of his repentance and took charge of the Greek School, which was operating in its monastic buildings. The record of his appointment, dated 28 July 1888, which is preserved in the monastery's Codex, is indicative of the great importance that the Cypriot monks attached to the operation of schools, both for the education of themselves and the other inhabitants of the island: "The undersigned Monastic Fathers of the Holy Monastery of Troodhitissa, constituting its assembly, taking into consideration that many of us have a need for the study of language, and that the establishment of a school may be of use to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, we all agree to appoint His Eminence Hieromonk Epiphanius as Master of the Monastery for a period of three years at an annual salary of twenty pounds sterling... . The master will enjoy in the monastery free housing, meals, laundry and services". In 1892, after the death of the then Abbot Germanos, the brotherhood of the monastery elected Epiphanios as the new Abbot, an office he held until his death in 1915. During the time of his abbatial office, Epiphanius did not forget his hometown, which he benefited by founding a school in 1909. The school, which consisted of a classroom, was built on his paternal land, next to the village church, and for its construction almost all the inhabitants volunteered their time. It was inaugurated in October of the same year by Epiphanius, who undertook the expenses of its upkeep and the payment of the teacher's salary. The first teacher was the graduate of the Maiden's School of Limassol, Eleni Moniatis, who was succeeded in 1913 by Michael Fragofinos. The school of Epiphanios continued to serve the educational needs of the community until 1960, when it was sold and converted into a residence after the current village school was built.