murals
All – Holy Virgin Koumbelina at Choumeriako
The church of the All-Holy Virgin the Koumbelina or Koumbelidiki (meaning ‘having a dome’) is built according to the architectural plan of the simple cross-in-square church. A wide barrel-vaulted, transverse narthex was added to the west later. Remains of an arch on the west of the north façade indicate that a barrel-vaulted narthex existed in […]
All – Holy Virgin the Vigliotissa at Voulismeni
The church, dedicated to the Birth of the Theotokos, is located around two kilometres to the west of the settlement of Voulismeni at the place of Vigli. It was the catholicon of a, now entirely ruined, monastery which was active from 1594 and until the 18th century according to a written source. The church, completely […]
Saint Onoufrios at Voulismeni
The single-nave church of St. Onoufrios is located to the north of the village of Voulismeni on a plateau at the top of a small hill. It may have been the catholicon of a monastery –abandoned today already from the beginning of the 20th century– without any known reference to it in the sources. The […]
Metamorphosis tou Sotiros (Transfiguration of the Redeemer) (Neapolis)
The two-aisled church is located in the cemetery of Neapolis and is dedicated to the Transfiguration of Jesus and to All Saints. The northern aisle was the original centre of the church, in contrast to the southern aisle, which is more recent. The murals date back to the late 13th – early 14th century, the […]
Saint Anna at Fourni
The barrel-vaulted church of St. Anna is dated to the late 14th– early 15th centuries on the basis of the stylistic features of the wall painting decoration which is preserved in its north and east sides. The church internally is shaped plastically with a series of shallow arches, while it also bears a plastic formation […]
Agios Georgios (St. George) (Skinias)
This is a 16th century arch-covered single-space church, with impressive blind arches and an ogival apse. Its murals date back to the 14th century and survive in relatively good condition.
Agios Nikolaos (St. Nicholas) at Ormos
The church of Agios Nikolaos is located at the small cove where ships were stranded during the Byzantine and Venetian eras. This is an exceptionally old domed church, one of the few of the Early Byzantine era that survive on Crete, with an impressive apse over the altar. It was built before the Arab conquest, […]
All – Holy Virgin the Vrefokratousa at Agios Nikolaos
The particularly elongated church of the All-Holy Virgin in the old centre of the city of Agios Nikolaos is the result of two successive expansions to the west of the original barrel-vaulted, single-nave church. The original church and the first expansion have two layers of mural paintings of which the oldest, dating to the first […]
Holy Monastery of Saint George the Vrachasotes
Even though the oldest reference to the monastery dates to 1549, during the abbotship of Joachim Kontoioannes, the dating of the wall-painted north aisle of the catholicon to the 14th century, places the first use of the space to an earlier period. Indeed, the heyday of the monastery, as can be determined from the surviving […]
Agios Dimitrios (St. Demetrius) Monastery (Kastri, Chondros)
At the site of the Church of Agios Dimitrios, there was a monastery that was destroyed by the Ottomans. According to tradition, its monks found refuge at Apezanes Monastery, after hiding the valuable religious utensils and relics at remote locations throughout the region. The Byzantine mural-adorned chapel of Agios Dimitrios must have served as the […]
