Church of Saint Paraskevi

Agia Paraskevi in Trachiniakos — the church that stood in water Between the Church of Saint John the Theologian and Prophet Elijah, along a marked footpath, stands the small church of Agia Paraskevi. Surrounded by trees, hidden in undergrowth, practically invisible from the path. There is a makeshift signpost. You need to know it is there. From the outside — a rounded apse, a roof that holds, stone walls absorbed by vegetation. It looks like something that survived. Inside is another matter. For years the church stood in water. A metre, a metre and a half. The damp entered the walls, stripped the plaster, leached salt into the stone. The iconographic programme recorded by Lassithiotakis — the Last Judgement with the punishment of the damned, a Christological cycle, scenes from the life of Agia Paraskevi, a large Christ in bust — exists today mainly in catalogues. What remains on the walls are faint traces, outlines, here and there the remnants of red framing bands along the arch. Stone and air. This is not a church for looking at frescoes. It is a church for understanding what it means to lose them. Agia Paraskevi — a martyr of the second century, tortured and beheaded for her faith — is the patron of sight. According to tradition, her death was preceded by the miraculous healing of an emperor's blindness. In the churches of Selino she appears frequently, usually among the physician saints. Here she had her own narrative cycle, her own scenes. Their outlines remain.