Churches
Churches dating back to the founding of Monemvasia not longer exist. Marble reliefs and door lintels make up the earliest remains of Byzantine churches. These function today as decorative elements on churches from later periods.
In the lower town, a forerunner of the present church of Christos Elkomenos (Christ in Bonds) (see plate 16) was constructed about the year 1000. The ruins of a church discovered in 1975/1976 in a garden along the southern wall about 2,5 meters below the modern street level, must also date from this early period, as the elaborately carved marble decoration seems to indicate.
The first representative example of ecclesiastical architecture that still stands in its original form is the Hagia Sophia in the upper town (see plates 31 and 33), which dates from the eleventh century (though the exact dating is disputed). The origins of the Hagios Petros date from the sixteenth century. During the second period of their rule, the Turks turned this building into a mosque (see plate 26). Parts of the church of Hagia Chrysaphitissa also date from the sixteenth century (see plate 18). During the short second Venetian occupation, Monemvasia experienced a particularly active period of church construction. Both the churches of Hagios Nicholaos (plate 25) and Panagia Myrtidiotissa (plate 13, left side) were built at this time, and extensive remodeling was undertaken on Christos Elkomenos as well.
The two churches of Hagia Sophia and Christos Elkomenos had monasteries that belonged to them; the building that stands north to the church of Panagia Chysaphitissa was also once a monastery.
Altogether, Monemvasia had about forty churches. However, only the larger of these are usable today for church services. The remains of the apses indicate the ruins of many smaller churches. Unfortunately, it is impossible to establish either the name or the construction date for any of these buildings. Many of the smaller chapels probably were in private possession, as was the case at Mistra.
Byzantine churches have the following characteristics: elaborately carved marble ornamentation (see plates 17 and 32), brickwork around the squarehewn stones of the wall, cupolas layered of bricks, and semicircular arches (see the cross section of the Hagia Sophia). The churches from the sixteenth century are generally of the quadratic cross in square type, with smaller additions only. Those churches dating from the second period of Venetian rule (excluding cases of remodeling, like the church of Christos Elkomenos), have no narthex, and make use of the elements of the so called Italo Byzantine style. This style prevailed particulary at Cyprus, and spread from there to other places in the eastern Mediterranean. The chief characteristics of this style are walls constructed of rubblework, pointed barrel vaults, use of ashlar for the drum and dome, segmental arch openings, and Renaissance style ornamentation (see the description of the church of Panagia Myrtidiotissa). The ornamentation and the groundplan without narthex were similar to western European churches, but the requirements of Greek orthodox ritual determined the final layout of the structure. The result was a novel mixture of a basilican type church, and a church on a central plan. The Renaissance style ornamentation shows that the Greek artisans were quite clumsy when working with decorative elements that were foreign to their own artistic tradition. This is especially clear if one compares this work to the elegant Byzantine decoration.
