Home Destinations Europe Greece Peloponnese Sights Church of the Virgin Mary's Birth

Church of the Virgin Mary's Birth Review

Read our Peloponnese sights reviews. Or post your own.

Church of the Virgin Mary's Birth

Address: West of Syntagma Sq., Nafplion

Category: Religious Sites
Location: Nafplion

Write a review

Fodor's Review:

The church rises next to an ancient olive tree, where, according to tradition, St. Anastasios, a Nafpliote painter, was killed in 1655 by the Turks. Anastasios was supposedly engaged to a local girl, but he abandoned her because she was immoral. Becoming despondent as a result of spells cast over him by her relatives, he converted to Islam. When the spell wore off, he cried out, "I was a Christian, I am a Christian, and I shall die a Christian." A Turkish judge ordered that he be beheaded, but a mob stabbed Anastasios to death. A local tradition holds that he was hanged on this olive tree and that it never again bore fruit. The church, a post-Byzantine three-aisle basilica, was the main Orthodox church during the Venetian occupation. It has an elaborate wooden reredos carved in 1870.

Find more sights in Peloponnese »