Religious tourism

Religious course of Symi

The testimonies of the New Testament reveal to us that the Apostle Paul and his associates first preached the Gospel in the area. In fact, local tradition wants this Great Apostle, due to sea turbulence, to disembark for a few hours on the small islet of Symi Teutlousa (Seskli), part of the Monastery of Panormitis for centuries, where there is an ancient Naidrio in his honor as well as remnants of early Christianity.

Subsequently, the successors and successors of the work of the Apostles, with centers of excursion in the Asia Minor cities of Phrygia, fought and succeeded in spreading the faith throughout the archipelago of the southern Sporades, as the Dodecanese used to be called. Dozens of Monasteries, such as the famous Panormitis, Roukouniotis, Kokkimidis, Megalos and Mikros Sotiris and many magnificent Parish Churches, are built or renovated in those years, most of which follow its rhythm

Crusade Basilica. The temples of this style were built in the Dodecanese between the years 1750 to 1925 and incorporate elements of Gothic architecture with individual morphological elements of the then modern, Ottoman decorative trend. Most of their evidence comes from the rescued knightly churches of Rhodes and the recruitment

them is a revival of medieval types and forms, formed during the knighthood (1310-1522), coming from a mixture of Gothic architecture and Byzantine tradition.

Unfortunately, this multifaceted prosperity, in the difficult years of Italian rule 1912-1943 stopped, and from now on the island experienced days of misery and abandonment. The new conquerors attempted to de-Hellenize the inhabitants and cut them off from the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Orthodox faith, applying persecutions, exiles and oppressions, which did not bend the resistance of the people.

In those difficult years the resistance did not bend. In the Monastery of Panormitis, the Second Pandodecanese Congress convened in 1919, issuing a resolution for the union of the Dodecanese with Mother Greece, while in 1944 the Monastery was transformed into a counter-espionage center in favor of the allies, headed by Abbot Chrysanthos Maroulakis. When the Italians located him, they executed him together with his associates, a soldier

Floro Zouganeli and Michael Lambrou, employee of the Monastery, in February 1944.

Extensive bombardment and bombings caused during B

World War II major damage to the magnificent neoclassical mansions of Symi, several of which were destroyed. An irreparable catastrophe took place on September 24, 1944, when German forces blew up the Great Virgin of the Castle and earlier bombed Agios Ioannis, the Diocese of the island.

Ecclesiastically, Symi, like the other islands, consistently belonged to the climate of the Ecumenical Patriarchate from Byzantine times and was included in the Diocese of Rhodes.

Nowadays, however, with the Patriarchal and Synodal Decision of Patriarch Bartholomew on April 28, 2004, the Holy Metropolis of Symi, Tilos, Halki and Kastellorizo ​​is founded, with the Metropolitan seat of Symi and the first Metropolitan Mr. Chrysodis until January 9, 2018, the day of his death. & nbsp; & nbsp; This comprehensive report proves convincingly that our ecclesiastical monuments displayed here, where the Aegean breeze lovingly dulls, are not mere museum spaces, resting only in their cool shadow our wanderings. They are living places of prayer and worship, places of Divine and human meeting, which offer safe refuge in the wild storms of nature and life, embodying through the centuries the orthodox experience and the traditional piety of our theophilic people.