EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE TIMES
EARLY CHRISTIAN AND BYZANTINE TIMES
At the time when Christianity became established in Attica (4th – 8th century), Athens was no longer a centre but came under the metropolis of Achaea, with its seat in Corinth.
The first Christian churches, built in the 5th and 6th centuries AD, when the persecutions had ceased and the Church could develop freely, were called “Early Christian basilicas”.
Early Christian basilica of Halimous: The monument built on the site occupied by the ancient Thesmophorion of the same name was excavated in 1929 by Wrede. Today its traces, like those of the Thesmophorion, have been lost because of the German fortification works on the hill.
It was a single-aisled cemetery basilica, as three similar graves and a large number of bones and skulls testify, later enlarged into a three-aisled basilica with colonnades of four columns along the long sides. Of the built ambo, the elements of the square altar table and the round marble table of the prothesis with incised decoration that were found, the last is in the Byzantine Museum. Use of the church appears to have continued during the Byzantine period as well.
Early Christian basilica of Halimous (ground plan)
Source: Kaza K., Kladia M.
Early Christian basilica at the Church of Zoodochos Pigi: On the site where the Church of Zoodochos Pigi stands today there was an Early Christian basilica, built with material from some ancient building, probably a sanctuary, that had previously stood on the site. Today the ruins of this Early Christian basilica are preserved visible in the courtyard of the Church of Zoodochos Pigi.
It was a cemetery church, as shown by the ten graves found in the narthex along the southern side of a small single-aisled basilica.
Early Christian basilica at the Church of Zoodochos Pigi
Source: Municipality of Alimos
Church of the Presentation of the Virgin – Trachones: The small church of the Presentation of the Virgin, in the form of a free cross with a projecting sanctuary apse and extended arms, which stands on the Geroulanos estate (next to the Trachones stream), is dated between the 15th and 17th centuries AD. It is the only monument preserved intact in the southern suburbs of Athens, and it is almost certain that today’s church of the Presentation was built on the foundations of an earlier cross-shaped Early Christian church. Proof of this is the marble lintel at the entrance of the church, dated to around the 6th century AD and re-used here, as well as the large relief parapet slab that was preserved built into the narthex of the church, probably coming from an Early Christian sarcophagus. The slab was decorated with a representation of a cross and a chi combined within a laurel wreath.
During the Middle Byzantine period (843–1204 AD) permanent inhabitants returned to Trachones and at the same time the settlement on the Geroulanos estate, which in fact was never completely abandoned, developed again. The Christians rebuilt the present church of the Presentation, probably in the 10th – 13th century AD, since the old one had been destroyed.
The church of the Presentation continued to function during the period of Ottoman rule, and it was probably then that the inhabitants intervened in the building, adding two corner compartments and an elongated narthex to double its capacity, which distorted the original type of the church.
A little later, in the 17th – 18th century AD, the church was decorated with wall paintings, but a mistaken intervention — plastering the walls with lime — concealed the brickwork decoration, which was a means of dating it.
Church of the Presentation of the Virgin
Source: Municipality of Alimos
The dome of the sanctuary of the basilica
Source: Municipality of Alimos
The Byzantine church of the Presentation of the Virgin, next to the auxiliary buildings of the Geroulanos house
Source: Municipality of Alimos
Chapel of Agios Kosmas: A family originating from Plaka broke up when three brothers from it sought their fortune in the new city that had been born a few years earlier, Piraeus. They settled in the great port and went into the iron trade. They were well known in their field, since it made an impression that their first and last names began with the same letters, “Z and P”: they were Petros Zois, Pavlos Zois and Panagiotis Zois.
On an outing to what was then a deserted headland in the countryside of the time, they decided to rebuild from its ruins a small church that bore the name “of the Holy Unmercenaries Cosmas and Damian”.
On 9 November 1904 King George I, accompanied by Major General I. Papadiamantopoulos, was out for a carriage ride down Syngrou Avenue on his way to Palaio Faliro. The King asked to go further along the coastal road and reached the little church. Impressed by the setting of the headland, he gave orders for the road to be properly surfaced as far as Agios Kosmas “so that it may become a wonderful promenade”. Thus from 1904 access to the church became easier. Today’s asphalt road was built along the original path that the King had taken.
It is the latest Byzantine monument in the area: a small, single-space, barrel-vaulted church to which a domed compartment has been added; it may well have been built on the ruins of an ancient sanctuary.
On the walls and vaults of the monument, wall paintings of the 17th and 19th centuries AD survive, painted over earlier layers of wall paintings.
Agios Kosmas consists of a small church with three cells and a grocery shop. On the sea side the space is closed by a roofed enclosure with a row of magnificent windows. (29 November 1905)
Source: pireorama.blogspot.com/2013/10/blog-post_23.html
Chapel of Agios Kosmas
Source: pireorama.blogspot.com/2013/10/blog-post_23.html
Installation of a “Dynatos” (a powerful landowner): During the Middle Byzantine period (9th – 12th century AD), a two-room farmhouse with a courtyard and part of a large installation belonging to a “Dynatos” (powerful landowner) of the period were excavated in Ano Kalamaki, within private plots.
