The Church of Panagia Myrtidiotissa

We can reach the church of Panagia Myrtidiotissa (see the church on plate 13 on the left) if we walk through the arched passageway located near the campanile of the church of Christos Elkomenos on the main street.

We first see the beautiful western facade built out of ashlar. Pilasters frame the door, and a pediment open at the top stretches over the door. Above the round window with its segmented ashlar frame, there is located a coat of arms in a rectangular panel enclosed by a molding. The coat of arms shows a cross decorated with flowers. Formerly, this was confused with the coat of arms of Villehardouin, a cross ancré. The significance of this coat of arms is still unclear.

We do know that the church was built in Italo Byzantine style during the early eighteenth century (at the time of the second Venetian rule) for the Order of the Myrtle garlanded Virgin Mary of Kythera. Maybe we should conclude from this that the flowers around the cross are the blossoms of the myrtle bush. The foot of the cross ends in volutes, which are repeated at the ridge and eaves of the front gable.

The church itself is a rectangular hall church without a narthex. It has a barrel vault made of ashlar, covered in the center by a hemispherical cupola atop a high drum. The apse has a semidome made of the same stonework; niches on either side of the apse serve as prothesis and diaconicon. All the segmental arched windows are made of ashlar, and, on the outside, are decorated with Renaissance frames.

The interior walls are naked and bare. The only ornament in the church, though an important one, is the iconostasis, which was formerly located in the church of Christos Elkomenos. When the iconostasis was installed, the interior walls of the church had to be notched to make room for the elaborate wood carving on the sides. The style of the wood carving on the iconostasis is quite different from that of the two dragons that flank the cross over the door to the bema. The iconostasis itself is elaborately decorated with typically Byzantine carving, similar to that in the church of Hagios Nicholaos in the nearby village of the same name. The dragons and the cross, on the other hand, are carved in a much flatter manner. The naivete of this style gives evidence of its peasant origins. We can thus assume that the top pieces were attached to the older iconostasis, when the entire screen was installed in the church of Panagia Myrtidiotissa.

The door to the church of Panagia Myrtidiotissa (also often called the church of Our Lady of Crete) is normaly locked. If this is the case, we can view the iconostasis from the steps, through a window in the north wall of the church. The Myrtidiotissa is by far the best example of the Italo Byzantine style in Monemvasia, for here we can clearly see the essential qualities of this style the simplicity of the ground plan, the carefully calculated proportions, and the multitude of small Renaissance details.