Centuries of faith carved in stone.
More than 800 wall-painted churches of Crete are recorded in K. Lassithiotakis’s topographical catalogue — many still undocumented in the field. Explore the catalogue, find churches near your route, or help us map what’s missing.
Seventy Ducats for a Gilded Passion
Agios Georgios of Vaïdiana, or Who Was Really Here First
Half a century before Pagomenos, someone was already painting here — no name, no fame, working for a monk who just wanted his own little church. I waited ten years to see it with my own eyes.
The Saint of Lost Things. Fanourios, His Mother, and a Slice of Cretan Cake.
When a true Cretan loses something, he doesn't start by checking the lost property office or posting in a local Facebook group. A true Cretan heads straight to the kitchen and starts baking a cake, a *fanouropita*. What on earth does a cake have to do with a missing sheep or a lost key? Why a cake, of all things, and where did this strange custom come from?
A Beardless Christ, or the Theology of a Face
One name, two languages, and a translation that changed the course of theology — before anyone had even picked up a brush.
330 churches, one island
All catalogued churches, filterable by region and century
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Three ways into the catalogue
Explore the map
Every catalogued church with its location, plan and state of preservation.
Open mapRead the stories
Field notes and essays on frescoes, painters and inscriptions.
Go to the blogHelp find a church
231 churches are known from records but not yet located. A photo and a pin are enough.
Submit a locationThis site was not born from a need to systematise the world, nor from an ambition to "tell the story of Greece". It was born from a fascination that got out of hand.Read more