Athens: Agioi Apostoli Solaki (The Holy Apostles), Άγιοι Απόστολοι Σολάκη

Inside the Agora  archaeological site.  Open 8:00 - 15:00 winter and 8:00- 18:30 summer. Tel: 210 321 0185 

The church of the Holy Apostles stands out in the ruins of the ancient agora, immediately recognizable as what it is, a mid Byzantine era gem set on top of an ancient temple dedicated to the nymphs. It wasn’t always this lonely or this small. Built sometime in the late 10^th century Agii Apostoli  is a one off for many reasons. Firstly, it is an Athenian domed  tetrastyle cross-in-square church but with each of the four arms of the cross ending in a  rounded conch making it a tetraconch church, the only Byzantine building like it in Athens.  The eastern conch is, of course, the apse and a door was set into the western one. To complete the design, the unknown architect rounded out the four corner bays, so the effect is like an opened eight-petalled flower and very appealing. A square narthex was added on to the western side  with three doors leading from it to the nave so again, the proportions remain attractive. 

Secondly, if you accept a later date for the building of Pantanassa, this is the oldest Byzantine building still standing in Athens. Athens being Athens and its history being what it is, of course there were add-ons in various centuries, all removed in the period of 1954-6 when the building was restored.  The American School has a complete record of the renovation.

Thirdly, this is one church that you have to pay admission to see. When the area of the agora was teeming with businesses and houses,  Agioi Apostoli was rubbing shoulders with many neighbouring buildings. This area was teeming with life and at some point this became a parish church. The Apostles were the patron saints of used goods vendors, men who once crowded the adjacent streets and gathered here on the church’s feast day (June 30^th). Workers in the same trade had their own patron saints throughout Byzantine history and into the Ottoman period as well. The nickname “Solaki” probably refers to a prominent family with holdings in the area. In the 1930s all of the houses and buildings around Agioi Apostoli were razed by the American School to uncover the ancient agora you see today, leaving a parish church standing alone without a parish.

It is easy now to investigate the outside of Agioi Apostoli and you see pretty much what you expect – cloisonné masonry, dentil bands (five ), kufic lettering, double layers of bricks in horizontal courses for emphasis,  and the so called arcade style windows of an early type. The inside is a cool surprise, clean cut and eggshell white except where an icon has been preserved – here the transition from Church to historical artifact is complete and the effect is actually quite pleasant.

 The Pantocrator is still in the dome and the pendentives  (the triangles above the columns and just  under the dome that effect the transition from square columns to round dome) still have the apostles holding up the heavens.  Three of the columns are copies and one is the real thing – from the Roman period. The iconostasis is in the style of the period, even using some pieces of the original.

The icons in the nave are from other churches in the now destroyed parish. 

Athens: Agioi Theodoroi, Klafthmonos Square (Άγιοι Θεόδωροι)

 At the western end of  Klafthmonos Square. (Evripidou and Skouleniou Street) Open 6:30-19:00 Tues, Thurs and Friday. 6:30 to 16:00 Mon and Wednesday, 6:30-14:00 Sat. and  6:30 -11:00 on Sunday. Tel: 210 324 7170

Agioi Theodoroi is an 11^th century distyle cross-in-square church. According to an inscription above the western entrance it was founded in 1049 or 1065 by one Nikolaos Kalomalos, a Byzantine official of the town who had the office of Spatharocandidatos or imperial bodyguard. It was built on the foundations of an older church, whose proportions influenced the present one; its three apses are unusually prominent, probably following the lines of a more massive predecessor. 

It is typical of other churches built in the city’s Golden Age of Byzantine art. For reasons I am not sure, it is not my favourite although it has all of the hallmarks of the architecture of that era, the slim Athenian dome,  the cloisonné  exterior masonry with bands of ornamental brickwork, marble lintels, relief decorations and kufic lettering running around the north, west, and south sides. Possibly it is the location on such a busy square. Its exterior shows the signs of Athens’ smog and the air conditioners stuck on the brickwork of the apse are somewhat jarring.

 The interior is almost exotically elaborate, much of it reflecting 19th century tastes. The tulip or chalice shaped pulpit is particularly ornate and, although by no means unique to this church, it looks very much like it belongs with marble iconostasis and all that silver casing in the background.  The dove on its lectern looks ready to take off at a moment’s notice. 

The cross high up on top of the iconostasis is placed over a skull and crossbones, an odd symbol unless you know it is a symbol of Christ’s promised resurrection after death caused by the original sin!

The frescoes are 20^th century by Athanasius Kandris.  You can visit and see what you think and the plus here is that this is one of Athens’ Byzantine churches that is open daily. Many locals from nearby offices visit to light candles. There is a very pleasant lady whose task it is to whisk away the candles the moment you light them, a phenomenon I have noticed before and find quite disconcerting. I am never sure if the candle has done its work before it is off to be recycled.  The modern bell-tower incorporates fragments of the marble iconostasis of the older church in its brickwork. 

 

The Church in 1842

(Wikipedia) 

  

Athens: Ag Ioannis Around the Column, Άγιος Ιωάννης στην Κολωνα

Evripidou Street, just past Diplari street, opposite number 67. Open 8:30 -1:00 (Closed Sundays and sometimes Thursdays) tel: 210 324 3813

 A walk west down Athens’ famous spice street will soon take you to a small plain whitewashed single-celled church recessed behind modest railings and  almost lost among the drab squat buildings which characterize the area.

 It really doesn’t matter when today’s church was built. It is just a shell, one of many built over the years, created to enclose the large column which emerges incongruously from the sanctuary roof. It is a Corinthian affair that was probably once part of an ancient temple to Asclepios. Traces of mosaic floors and six wells were found the area. Water was important to cures at all ancient Asclepeions.

 The site of the temple was appropriated by the Christians in 565 AD when a one-aisled basilica was built to perpetuate cures, this time under the Aegis of John the Baptist.

My effort to photograph the column in June was high-jacked by the dense greenery surrounding the church – great on a hot day, but even with the help of a priest to hoist me up to a higher spot in the garden, the column remained veiled in green. Then I came across this one in a newspaper:

This church had a specialty. Up until the twentieth century in Athens fevers were common, frightening, and often fatal. The custom developed to tie the fever to the column and get rid of it that way. Each fever had its own colour. Malaria was white, measles was red, and yellow did the trick if you weren’t sure.  Various descriptions of this expulsion ritual are extant; the details changed over time. Some said a thread had to be placed under the bed of the sick person, some that the thread had to come from the victim’s clothes. At one point a thread would be rubbed on the icon of Saint John, worn around the waist for three days,  and then passed three times around the column and ‘fixed’  to it with Holy wax which would then take the fever, and presumably hang on to it or send it elsewhere.  One supplicant’s prayer has survived: Take this accursed illness; take it to the high mountains, to the boulders at the root of the mountain, where no cock crows.

The column had oracular powers too. A sufferer would attach a silver drachma to the column. If it held fast he would be cured; if not...

This church was important enough to citizens in Turkish times that it was included -just- inside the farthest northern reach of the city’s walls built by Ali Hadji Haseki. One suspects that Christians and Ottomans both had a strong faith in the efficacy of the cure. The blend of old superstitions with Orthodoxy, even today, is one of the, to me anyway, delights of a church like this one

The column has been tidied up now, more’s the pity, but many threads could still be seen just few years ago if you moved aside the curtain of the sanctuary. You can still twitch the curtain to see the column. Don’t touch though. According to William Miller (1905) locals firmly believed that the column acts like a lightening rod and that all the fevers are still there, buried deep beneath the column.  

Athens: Agioi Anargyroi, Psirri ( Άγιοι Ανάργυροι Ψυρρή)

Open daily 7-12 am. Tel: 210 321 6234,  19 Ag Anargyroi St opposite Taki St, one short block down from Plateia Iroon and surrounded by lovely spots for coffee or a snack.

If you were not told, you would never know that the eastern part of Ag Anargyroi was once an 11^th century cross-in-square church.(1) The exterior has been plastered although the very unusual two tiered dome can be easily seen from the outside. The twin bell towers and long nave and  were added in 1908 to meet the needs of the parish; the elongation of the nave turned it into a basilica. 

It had been a parish church in Turkish times and was one of the few to survive more or less intact after the battle in 1827 when the Turks took back the acropolis for a time – being on the outskirts of town was an advantage during these battles. Like all parish churches in Ottoman times, it was surrounded by a graveyard. There is a memorial commemorating the grave of Panayotis Ktenas, a hero of the 1821 battle when the Greeks captured the Acropolis for the first time. The two-tiered dome of the original church is nicely mirrored twice, on both bell towers that flank the churches western side. The inside is attractive and quite homogeneous

Perhaps it is the setting in picturesque Psirri, an area always pleasant to be in, but I rather like this expansion effort and enjoy dropping in when I am in the district. The interior too seems to be the nicest amalgamation of old and new of all the churches looked at. It has many attractive details such as the wrought iron doors leading into the sanctuary.

The base of the dome has a round grill to help support it but through it you can still see the Pantocrator. The evangelists are where they should be on the pendentives at the base of the dome.

(1) It is worth a little time to google: aganargiripsiri.wordpress.com and the click on Άγιοι Ανάργυροι Ψυρρή  because there is a drawing of the church as it was originally, a drawing which also shows just how out in the country this church was during the Ottoman period.