Kalogeros: a village in the Amari valley and its painted churches

Kalogeros: a village in the Amari valley and its churches

Kalogeros (Καλόγερος) is a small, green village in the historic district of Amari, on the north-western slopes of the valley and directly opposite Thronos. It stands at about 480 metres above sea level and is built like an amphitheatre on the hillside; its stone houses, narrow lanes and traditional door surrounds, plain in their architecture but with carefully worked shutters, preserve the look of a Cretan mountain settlement of the kind once typical of the villages at the foot of Psiloritis. The Prefecture of Rethymno has listed it as a traditional settlement for that reason. From the edges of the village the view opens across the valley to the western flank of Psiloritis, and the road runs on to Asomatos Monastery. Anyone who lingers here finds a place where daily life still goes quietly, and where several churches with medieval wall paintings survive within a short distance of one another. The village keeps its feast on 18 January, the day of St Athanasios and St Cyril, Patriarchs of Alexandria.

The church of Agios Ioannis Theologos

The church of St John the Theologian (Αγίου Ιωάννη του Θεολόγου) belongs to the village and stands at the spot known as Spilios. It is a single-aisled Byzantine building of the 14th century, dated by its inscription to 1347, and its walls are covered almost entirely with frescoes. The paintings belong to the world of late Byzantine church painting on Crete, the work of the decades in which the island, though ruled from Venice, went on decorating its country chapels in the Orthodox manner. The name of the master has not come down to us, but the unity of the scheme and the quality of the execution make the church a particularly valuable monument. It shows, too, that Kalogeros was part of a developed ecclesiastical culture in Amari: small villages commissioned painted decoration for their churches and looked after it from one generation to the next.

Agia Paraskevi and the road to Asomatos

On the way out of Kalogeros, in a grove of cypresses by the road to Asomatos Monastery and on the plain to the north of it, stands the church of the Great Martyr St Paraskevi, a dependency of the monastery. Its construction is dated to the period between the 13th and 15th centuries, though the building was largely reconstructed in the 19th century; an inscribed plaque over the main door records the restoration of 1888. It is a Byzantine cross-in-square church of the free-cross type, its dome raised on a tall cylindrical drum, but what makes it exceptional is only apparent inside, where parts of the original fabric were kept. In the north wall – the northern arm of the cross – is a tomb recess, an arcosolium with a built sarcophagus, which runs on towards the apse and is painted with frescoes throughout. The front of the sarcophagus carries a hunting scene. Visitors enter by the south door, so that the tomb faces them across the church.

Among the paintings the eye is caught by Christ, shown frontally on the tympanum of the recess at a scale far larger than the figures around him, wearing a red tunic and a white mantle and holding an open book, who with hands raised in prayer blesses two people. In all, four small figures kneel in supplication beside him. Next to them is an inscription: “Blessing for the servant of God Georgios Chortatzis and his wife”. The text ties the church to the memory of a distinguished Cretan family and shows that it was not only a place of worship but also a family burial place; Georgios Chortatzis and his wife appear as its founders. Above the tomb of Georgios Chortatzis, a descendant of the well-known Byzantine family of Crete and remembered locally as a chieftain of Amari, is a unique fresco of the donor and his family.

Around Kalogeros there are further witnesses to the history of the Church, among them the church of St Marina with frescoes of the 13th century. Together with the churches of St John the Theologian and St Paraskevi they form a small zone, rich in monuments, in which different phases of the Christian history of Crete have survived within a single valley.

Kalogeros and Asomatos Monastery

From Kalogeros it is about two kilometres to Asomatos Monastery. The village therefore fits easily into a route through Amari: first one sees the frescoes and the tomb in the church of Agia Paraskevi, which is reached by a short stretch of earth road off the tarmac, and then carries on to the monastery complex and the other villages of the valley. As small village churches are generally kept locked and opened only at certain times or on request, it is sensible to ask in the village for whoever holds the key and not to plan the visit for the middle of the day.

Agios Ioannis Theologos at a glance

The single-aisled church of St John the Theologian, of the 14th century and dated by inscription to 1347, is frescoed almost in its entirety. The coherence of the decoration and the quality of its craftsmanship make it one of the finest examples of village church art in Amari. The communities kept their churches in repair over the generations, and so the paintings have survived to the present day.

St Paraskevi and the tomb

The church of the Great Martyr St Paraskevi stands in a cypress grove by the road to Asomatos Monastery, to which it belongs. It is dated to the 13th to 15th centuries; its cruciform plan and its dome, carried on a tall drum, follow the Byzantine building tradition, even though much of what is seen today is the result of the 19th-century rebuilding. In the north wall lies the tomb recess, which runs on towards the apse and is painted with frescoes. In this way the church served at once as a place of worship and as a family vault.

The inscription for Georgios Chortatzis

In the fresco of the tomb, Christ, with hands raised in prayer, blesses two people. Beside them an inscription can be read, asking a blessing for the servant of God Georgios Chortatzis and his wife. In local memory the name is linked with the poet Georgios Chortatzis, author of “Erofili”. More important than that later identification, however, is the inscription itself: it bears witness to the patrons and to the function of the church as a place of burial.

Agia Marina and Asomatos Monastery

To the west of Kalogeros lies the church of St Marina; one of the earliest frescoed churches of the district and among the oldest in Amari, it is dated to about the year 1300 on the strength of an inscription preserved among its wall paintings. Some two kilometres from the village is Asomatos Monastery. Together these monuments make up a route through the Late Byzantine and Venetian heritage of Amari, one that combines archaeology, living villages and the landscape of central Crete.

Taken at leisure, Kalogeros fills half a day: the frescoes, the view from the village across to Thronos on the opposite side, and the short drive through cypresses, olive groves and oaks on the slopes of Psiloritis together give a memorable picture of Amari, well away from the main tourist routes.