Church of the Panagia

Church of the Nativity of the Virgin (Ναός Γέννησης της Παναγίας), Patsos, Amari Valley One of the most important monuments of the Rethymno region, at the entrance to the village of Patsos in the Amari valley. The church has been linked to the powerful Kallergis family and is thought to have served as an episcopal see, since written sources mention an Orthodox bishop residing in Patsos as early as 1357. It is a cross-in-square church with large piers of hewn masonry supporting the central dome. Three apses close the building to the east — the central one five-sided on the exterior with a synthronon inside — and a narthex was added to the west. The floor of the initial church lay about 40 cm lower than today's, preserving beneath it much of the richly carved sculptural decoration from the building's first phase (11th–12th century), later remodelled in the early 14th century. The interior is covered with wall paintings by a highly skilled workshop in the current Palaiologan style, including scenes from the Christological cycle, episodes from the lives of the Virgin and of St. Nicholas, and standing saints. The frescoes were detached and conserved in the 1970s and exhibited at St. Catherine's Collection in Heraklion until 2011, when the detached fragments returned to Rethymno — currently held at the Archaeological Museum of Rethymno (housed in the church of St. Francis), pending display in the regional museum. Between 2012–2014, under a Greece–Cyprus cross-border cooperation programme, conservation works secured the standing masonry without extensive reconstruction.