Millennium Manoli, the oldest citizen of Cyprus

ON JANUARY 1, 2000, one Cypriot woman will truly be able to say that she has lived through three centuries.

Athena Manoli celebrated her 113th birthday earlier this year and will tomorrow be specially honoured as the oldest Cypriot citizen and the island’s oldest prolific mother, Simerini newspaper reported yesterday.

Labour Minister Andreas Moushioutas will tomorrow present Manoli with an award at the Nicosia Conference Hall during a ceremony to honour Cyprus’ aged.

Taking place in the framework of the International Year Of The Aged, the ceremony will also include awards for other aged Cypriots for their services to the country.

Manoli was born in the Paphos area in the then Greek and Turkish Cypriot mixed village of Ayia Varvara on October 3, 1886.

Her family moved to Kouklia village, also in Paphos, when she was 10 where she began work as a farm labourer and later as a reaper in Mesaoria.

She was married at 18 and has had five children (three of whom are now dead), 16 grandchildren, 34 great-grandchildren and six great-great-grandchildren.

Her husband died 59 years ago and Manoli began to work at a Vassilia monastery in return for food and shelter for her and her three orphaned grandchildren.

Following the Turkish invasion, Manoli returned to Kouklia, where she still lives today in a Turkish Cypriot-owned house with one of her children and their family. Now almost totally deaf and confined to her bed, she is taken care of by her daughter Maria and the Welfare and Social Services Department.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.