Open Collections

Germanidou, Sophia

Database of Religious History (DRH)

The church of Prophet Ilias (Elijah) is located close to a modern-day cemetery, in the area of Abysoles, at the village of Thalames, in the messinian province of Mani peninsula, Peloponnese, in south-western Greece. The building is modest in dimensions (5,3 x 4,5 m), constructed with large quantities of poros blocks, set in bands, partly interlaced with single lines of bricks. Rubble masonry is used for the lower parts of the church. The church belongs to a rare architectural type, identified with several terms: “single- aisle with truncated dome and external appearance of a cross-in-square- inscribed”, “single-aisle barrel vaulted basilica with a dome”, “cross-vaulted church with a dome”, “truncated cross-in-square inscribed with arms of unequal width”. The type is being acknowledged as a transitional form between the truncated cross-insquare and the traverse vault churches or just a product of experimentations of both types. The interior was originally entirely covered with murals. The largest part of the decoration has fallen off, while the remaining paintings have suffered severe damages. The conch of the apse is adorned with the figure of Prophet Elijah, and the dome of the Christ Pantocrator's bust. Other figures and scenes include the Annunciation, prelates, Life of saint Demetrios, female saints. Murals combine iconographic and stylistic features that evoke both a progressive and a conservative character and they are probably dated at the end of the 13th - early 14th century. In the church it is still performed orthodox christian ritual only at the commemoration day of Saint Ilias (Elijah) feast.

Other

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0416037

Non UBC

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/