Elegmoi Monastery

The church is damaged with the major destruction located on the central dome, which has collapsed.  In general, the building bears characteristic elements of the Byzantine architecture of the 11th-12th centuries such as the tympana, the form of the bema and the tripartite apse, whose central part protrudes more than the other two.

The church consists of a single nave with a dome with a diameter of ca. 5 m. It had also a narthex and an apse which is little broader that the nave. The side parts of the apse were domed with pumpkin domes (=A dome separated to small arched segments, usually visible only on its inside, but sometimes also projecting on the outside.). Windows were also positioned in all three parts of the apse.

On the western side of the nave prevails a tympanon with three large windows. The narthex was covered by a groin-vault (=A vault formed over square or rectangular spaces by the interpenetration of two barrel-vaults of equal hight and diameter. The lines of the intersection form a diagonal cross) and had an irregular shape.

The masonry of the church uses mostly brick bands interchangeably with stone layers but in some points there are three or more successive courses of brick.

From the sixth-century phase have survived sculpture elements which were used as spolia in the interior of the church, for example as capitals. There are however other carved elements from later phases such as a marble slab dated in 1196. The recent excavations brought to Up to the 20th century the frescoes of the church could be seen but in the 1060s they were seriously damaged. However, they were not Byzantine but dated in the seventeenth or eighteenth century.

EKATERINI MITSIOU