Church of Agios Thomas
The settlement of Agios Thomas, built in a privileged location, 30 kilometres to the south of the city of Heraklion, preserves a large number of churches in relation to its size. The three-aisled church with a domed narthex of St. Thomas from which the settlement took its name dominates the centre of the settlement. Its architectural plan, possibly in the location of an early Christian building, was created when a radical rebuilding took place, during the early Venetian period, of an equally unknown type of building from the middle Byzantine period, parts of which survive in the perimeter of the lower section of the walls as well as in the nave. The church was then transformed into a three-aisled basilica while, a little later, perhaps during the 15th century, the tripartite narthex, whose central section is crowned by a dome with a particularly high drum, was added. At the end of the 19th century the belfry, with its adherent base around the north doorframe, monumentally structured with a neo-roman arcade, was added. Traces of the mural painting of the church survive in the south aisle as well as the representation of the All-Holy Virgin Vrefokratousa [holding the Child] of the 15th century in the southern section of the narthex.
