Kato Chorio and Thrypti

Kato Chorio (Κάτω Χωριό), the “lower village”, lies about seven kilometres north of Ierapetra at the narrowest point of the island, the Isthmus of Ierapetra, under the western wall of the Thrypti range. Springs and streams feed gardens, plane trees and olive groves, so that the place looks strikingly greener than the dry slopes round about. Its centre is an unusually broad square beneath mighty planes, eucalyptus and pines, where the tavernas set out their tables and the village gathers. In the past Kato Chorio was one of the well-to-do villages of the district; today people come for the churches, the old lanes and the road into the Thrypti Mountains. Five settlements make up the community: Kato Chorio itself, Episkopi, Pano Chorio, Papadiana and Thrypti.

Water and good soil drew people here very early. The area has been inhabited since the Neolithic, that is, for more than 7,000 years; from the land of Kato Chorio comes a clay figurine whose age is estimated at 7,000 to 8,000 years and which ranks among the important Neolithic finds of Crete, a rare piece of small-scale sculpture from so remote a period.

The churches of Kato Chorio

In the quarter of Archontika – the name recalls the mansions of the propertied families – stands the church of the Transfiguration of Christ (Metamórfosi tou Sotíros), built in 1831. Its artistic distinction lies in the carved wooden icon screens, which are worked in differing styles. On the southern edge of the village is the church of the Holy Trinity (Agía Triáda), of the late 17th century and so a building of the first decades of Ottoman rule, a single-aisled basilica in the traditional Cretan manner; the iconostasis and wooden furnishings date from the 19th century. The church of the Dormition of the Virgin (Kímisi tis Theotókou), lastly, is an imposing three-aisled building with a dome. In the course of later repairs old graves, traces of wall painting and earlier doorways that had been walled up came to light here.

These finds agree with the local tradition that a monastery of the Virgin once stood on the same spot; a notarial deed of 1546 records the gift of a garden to the monastery of the Panagia Hodegetria in the locality of Stylos. The present parish church was founded on 10 March 1957 and consecrated on 26 July 1964; its three altars are dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin, the Apostle Titus and St George. The feasts are kept on 15 August, on 25 August (St Titus, first bishop of Crete) and on 23 April and 3 November (St George). The parish preserves a 19th-century icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria, together with old liturgical books. On a hill above the village stands the chapel of the Prophet Elijah, with a wide view across the neck of land, taking in both the Sea of Crete and the Libyan Sea.

The iconostasis divides the sanctuary from the nave and unites the architecture of the church with the painting of icons. In Cretan churches the carving often preserves native plant motifs – vine tendrils, leaves, flowers – and the old icons and books continue to be used in worship, not merely displayed like museum pieces.

Thrypti and the mountain of Afentis Stavromenos

From Kato Chorio a road, partly asphalted and partly gravel, climbs in hairpin bends to Thrypti (Θρυπτή), the “upper village” on the mountain of the same name. The distance is about eight kilometres, and from Ierapetra some sixteen. Thrypti lies at around 860 metres in a hollow among pine woods, beneath the main summit. It came into being because of the vineyards, for which the height offers ideal conditions: the families of Kato Chorio and Ierapetra moved up in summer for the vintage, and to this day the low stone houses are occupied almost exclusively in the warm season – the census of 1940, the first to list the place, recorded all of three inhabitants. The springs here feed the stream that drops into the Ha Gorge as the Mastoras waterfall. The view from here takes in the plain of Ierapetra, the bay and the mountain chains of eastern Crete.

A demanding mountain path leads to the summit of Afentis Stavromenos, at about 1,476 metres the highest point of the mountains of Sitia and of a massif some twenty kilometres long. There are two ways up from Thrypti: the unsurfaced service track that winds round to the transmitter masts on the top, long and without shade, and a direct path from the uppermost houses of the village across the north face, where the limestone is brittle and stonefall has to be reckoned with. On the summit stands the little church of Afentis Christos – “Christ the Lord”. In clear weather the view extends from the Sea of Crete to the Libyan Sea, over Mirabello Bay and the Dikti Mountains to the west, across the provinces of Ierapetra and Sitia, and as far as the island of Kasos in the Dodecanese.

The plant and animal life of the mountain is protected as part of the European Natura 2000 network. Large areas are covered by pine forest, which has however suffered badly from fires; on the rocks grow Cretan endemics such as ebony and the Cretan cyclamen, and rare birds of prey breed in the walls of the gorges. Even in summer, strong wind and a rapid change in the weather are possible on the open ridge. Spring is the best season for it.

Kato Chorio and Thrypti bring together ecclesiastical heritage, springs and mountain landscape. The excursion can readily be combined with the Ha Gorge, with Early Minoan Vasiliki and with other monuments in the Ierapetra area.