Church of Christ the Savior

Church of Christ the Saviour (Transfiguration), Plemeniana The church stands three kilometres south-west of Kandanos, within the village cemetery. A single-nave, barrel-vaulted structure with a semicircular apse — the standard type of the Selino eparchy under Venetian rule. The apse exterior is crowned with a ceramic dentilled cornice; inside, conservation work revealed traces of an earlier triple window in brick, characteristic of middle Byzantine architecture (11th–14th c.). The church was extended westward before 1900; its present plan was recorded by Giuseppe Gerola in his early twentieth-century survey of Cretan monuments. The frescoes were executed in two phases by two distinct hands: the eastern wall with the apse dates to the late 13th century, while the rest of the decoration belongs to the 14th century. Following conservation, 23 large scenes from the Christological cycle survive in good condition (including the Nativity, Baptism, and Dormition of the Theotokos), alongside 36 full-length saints and 23 bust-length figures. The apse holds a Pantokrator surrounded by angelic hosts, with a register of hierarchs below. On the south wall, Gerola identified a donor composition: a woman in a blue dress with red stripes, wearing a white embroidered cap, kneeling in an act of offering. The donors' names are unknown. Wall graffiti bear the date 1367. The church is active and open to visitors.