Chania- Rotonda Episkopi: A monument of the 6th century again visitable

A rare and perfectly preserved monument, the only one of its kind in Crete, opens its gates to the public.

This is the Church of Michael Archangelos (Rotunda) Episkopi, in the Municipality of Platanias Chania, which achieved, after cooperation with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Chania and their joint actions, the placement of a seasonal employee of Archaeology, so that it can be visited.

The space will be open daily from 9:30 to 16:30 from Monday to Sunday (except Tuesday) for a period of seven months.

«This is a unique monument that exists in our region. Our goal, in cooperation with archaeology, is to highlight it and give the opportunity to those who visit Crete individually and organized and to permanent residents, to visit it, »stresses the mayor of Platanias Yannis Malandrakis to AP-MPA. .

Religious and cultural route

At the same time, as he points out to APE - MPE, a religious and cultural route is created in the area with the connection of Rotunda with the monumental olive tree of Vouves, from which branches are cut for the wreaths of the winners of the Olympic Games and is a monument of nature and culture.

The blessing of the fruits of the earth

In Rotunda on the first Sunday of every August the blessing of the fruits is held. The feast was established by the late Metropolitan Irineos Galanakis.

The producers of the region gather their products in the temple of Rotunda in order to be blessed.

Temple of the 6th century

The early Christian church of Michael the Archangel - baptistery of the 6th century AD, is built on sloping ground outside the settlement of Kato Episkopi Kissamos of the Municipality of Platanias.

It is a pericentric, rectangular building, developed around a large, stepped external and mastoid internal dome.

The temple has mosaic floors decorated with flakes, vines, ivy leaves, fish and a framework of intersecting semicircles, which can be dated to the second half of the 6th century, the period in which the whole complex was built. The fresco decoration, which survives in fragments in four or five layers, is particularly important. Of these, the initial one, with the depiction of the Ascension and saints in stoups in the dome, the Evangelist Matthew in the narthex, St. George with a dedicatee in the south pastorium and an archangel in the quatrefoil of the niche of the sanctuary, date from the 7th century.

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