Theasis-Ag. Nikolaos Travel Guide

 

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Agios Georgios Monastery, located in Selinari gorge, was built during the 2nd Byzantine era. The catholicon is dedicated to Saint George. There are two other churches, one dedicated to the Epiphany and the other to the Resurrection. The icon of Saint George, the protector of travellers, is considered to be miraculous and is a traditional destination for worship for passers-by.

The monastery of Kapsas is located in the southerneast corner of Crete, on the west side of the exit from the gorge of Pervolakia towards the sea. Even though the date of its foundation is unknown to us, the existence of wall painting decoration, possibly of the 13th–14th centuries, in the aisle of St. John the Forerunner, as well as the engravings which cover a long period, the oldest from 1512 until the more recent in the 18th century, give us secure facts for an early dating of the monument.

 Churches

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The church of Panagia Kera at Kritsa

The three-aisled, barrel-vaulted church of the All-Holy Virgin ‘the Lady’ with a dome on the nave is located to the south and at a distance of around 500 metres from the settlement of Kritsas. The church is one of the most important visited monuments of Crete because of its extensive and well-preserved wall painting decoration from various periods of ­Byzantine art.

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The Metropolitan church of Megali Panagia at Neapolis

The metropolitan church, dedicated to the Dormition of the Theotokos (August 15), rises magnificent in the north corner of the central square of Neapolis. Its erection at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century lasted a long time due to the financial ­constraints of the period. It had been founded in the year 1889 by bishop Meletios Chlapoutakis, was mostly built by his successor, bishop Titos Zografides, and was completed by bishop Dionysios Maragoudakis who inaugurated it on ­September 27, 1927

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The Early Christian Basilica at Elounda

In the location of the ancient city of Olous, at the isthmus of Poros, the settlement of Alyngos, as Elounda was called in the sources of the sixth century, developed in the early Byzantine period. The most important excavated monuments of the settlements are, until today, the two early Christian basilicas of the 5th century, in the inlets of Poros and Kolokytha of the large natural port of the area.

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Church Agios Fokas

The Byzantine chapel of Saint Fokas, which was built in honour of the emperor Nikephoros II Phokas for liberating Crete from the Arabs in 961 AD. It's a bit of a walk from Elounda, some of it quite rough, but worth it.