Church of Saint Athanasius

Church of Saint Athanasius In the small settlement of Mesa Voukolies, in western Crete, stand the ruins of the medieval Church of Saint Athanasius. This small, single-nave church preserves fragments of wall paintings dating from two periods, the 14th and 15th centuries. Despite extensive damage, several elements of its original iconographic programme remain identifiable, including traces of the Hospitality of Abraham and a scene depicting the Communion of Saint Mary of Egypt, receiving the Eucharist from the monk Zosimas. Particularly noteworthy are the surviving fragments of depictions of punishments in Hell. On the west wall, a scene portrays individual sinners subjected to punishment for their transgressions. The painting belongs to the broader Byzantine iconographic tradition of the Last Judgement, in which particular sins were associated with specific forms of suffering. Traces of another composition showing communal punishments of the damned survive on the north wall, although its condition is considerably worse. The church was recorded by Kostas Lassithiotakis in his catalogue of Crete's frescoed churches under number 817. Its representations of Hell are also documented in Angeliki Lymberopoulou and Rembrandt Duits's Hell in the Byzantine World. Although the church now lies in ruins, its surviving paintings remain valuable evidence of the religious imagination and artistic traditions of late medieval Crete. The church is open and accessible to visitors, although it is formally located on private property.