The Tinians built the splendid Church of the Annunciate Virgin on this site in 1823 to commemorate finding a buried icon in the foundations of an old Byzantine church that once stood here. Imposing and grand, framed in gleaming yellow and white, it stands atop the town's main hill, which is linked to the harbor via Megalocharis, a steeply inclined avenue lined with votive shops. Half Venetian, half Cypriot in style, the facade has a distinctive two-story arcade and bookend staircases. Lined with the best marble from Tinos, Paros, and Delos and green veined Tinian stone, the church's courtyards are paved with pebble mosaics. Inside the upper three-aisle church dozens of beeswax candles and precious tin and silver work votives—don't miss the golden orange tree near the door donated by a blind man who was granted sight—dazzle the eye. There is often a wait in line to see the small icon, encrusted with jewels, that is said to have curative powers. To beseech the icon's aid, a sick person often sends a young female relative or a mother may bring her sick infant. As the pilgrim descends from the boat, they fall to their knees, with traffic indifferently whizzing about them, and they crawl painfully up the faded red carpet lane on the main street—1 km (½ mile)—to the church. In the church's courtyards, they pray to the magical icon for a cure, which sometimes comes. This ritual is very similar to the ancient one observed in Tinos's temple of Poseidon. The lower church, called the Evresis, celebrates the finding of the icon; in one room a baptismal font is filled with silver and gold votives, while the chapel to the left commemorates the torpedoing by the Italians, on Dormition Day, 1940, of the Greek ship Elli; in revenge the roused Greeks amazingly overpowered the Italians.
