7 Best Sights in The Northern Aegean Islands, Greece

The enormous five-domed post-Baroque church of Agios Therapon, completed in 1935, was designed by architect Argyris Adalis, an islander who studied under Ernst Ziller, the prolific architect of so many of the municipal buildings in Athens. The church is dedicated to St. Therapon, whose name means "healer," and it has been visited by many people who came to Lesvos to recuperate from illness. It has an ornate interior, a frescoed dome, and there is a Byzantine museum in the courtyard that is filled with religious icons.

This towering church just off the main square was built in 1694 and is embellished with a lavishly decorated portico and an impressive bell tower. Every August 15 the Virgin Mary is celebrated in one of the biggest festivals on the island.

The 19th-century church that commands the main square of Mesta (and one of two churches of the same name in the town) is one of the wealthiest in Greece; its vernacular is Baroque combined with the late-folk-art style of Chios. There is a double staircase leading to the bell tower and to a pebbled courtyard. The church was built on the ruins of the central refuge tower and dedicated to the Archangels Gabriel and Michael.

Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos ("the Dueler") ordered the Nea Moni monastery built where three monks found an icon of the Virgin Mary in a myrtle bush. The octagonal katholikon (medieval church) is the only surviving example of 11th-century court art—none survives even in Constantinople. The monastery has been renovated a number of times: the dome was completely rebuilt following an earthquake in 1881, and a great deal of effort has gone into the restoration and preservation of the mosaics over the years. The distinctive three-part vaulted sanctuary has a double narthex, with no buttresses supporting the dome. This design, a single square space covered by a dome, is rarely seen in Greece. Blazing with color, the church's interior gleams with marble slabs and mosaics of Christ's life, austere yet sumptuous, with azure blue, ruby red, velvet green, and skillful applications of gold. The saints' expressiveness comes from their vigorous poses and severe gazes, with heavy shadows under the eyes. On the iconostasis hangs the icon—a small Virgin and Child facing left. Also inside the grounds are an ancient refectory, a vaulted cistern, a chapel filled with victims' bones from the massacre at Chios, and a large clock still keeping Byzantine time, with the sunrise reckoned as 12 o'clock.

The fresco-embellished 12th-century church Agioi Apostoloi is a very small replica of the katholikon, or major church, at the Nea Moni Monastery. Cretan artist Antonios Domestichos created the 17th-century frescoes that completely cover the interior, and they have a distinct folk-art leaning.

This walled compound in the village center was founded in the 12th century to house an icon of the Virgin Mary, believed to be the work of St. Luke, and it remains a popular place of pilgrimage, with many walking the 27 km (16 miles) from Mytilini on August 15. Built into the foundation are shops whose revenues support the church, as they have through the ages. The church museum has a little Bible from AD 500, with legible, elegant calligraphy.

The black icon of archangel Michael is in the 17th-century monastery dedicated to the island's patron saint, Taxiarchis Michail. The gruesome legend has it that the icon was carved by a monk who used mud and the blood of his comrades, slain in an Ottoman attack, to darken it. Believers used to make a wish and press a coin to the archangel's forehead; if it stuck, the wish would be granted. Owing to wear and tear on the icon, the practice is now forbidden.