The church of Haios Georgios in Domenikon, Elasson

Abstract

During restoration and excavation campaigns conducted by the 7th Ephorate of Byzantine Antiquities in the years 1995-1997, new evidence was revealed about the construction history of the church of Hagios Georgios in Domenikon. Construction, stylistic, and stratigraphic data indicate that the church was originally built on the ruins of a Late Roman temple in the late 10th or early 11th century as an Episcopal cathedral, equipped with synthronon, ciborium, and ambo. In the second half of the 13th century, probably at the expense of the Sebastokrator of Thessaly Johannes Angelos Komnenos Dukas, the narthex was expanded to the west in order to become a lite, since the church was converted to a monastery katholikon. Much later, the roofs of the church were remodeled to assume the unified form they have today, and the interior walls received new painted decoration dated by inscriptions to 1611 and 1615. During the 18th century the northern wall and part of the eastern wall of the diakonikon were rebuilt.