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Church · Thessaloniki, Central Macedonia

Church of Saint Demetrius, Thessaloniki

Ιερός Ναός Αγίου Δημητρίου

The Church of Saint Demetrius (Hagios Demetrios) is a five-aisled basilica in Thessaloniki dedicated to the city's patron saint, a working Orthodox church with a crypt beneath its sanctuary.

Why go

The Ministry of Culture's Odysseus page describes a five-aisled basilica with a narthex and a transept and a crypt under the sanctuary; it says a small oratory was built here shortly after 313 AD on the ruins of a Roman bath, that the present basilica followed a fire of 626-634, that the church was a mosque from 1493 until 1912, and that after the great fire of 1917 it was rebuilt and functioned again from 1949. The church's own website, published under the Holy Metropolis of Thessaloniki, says the crypt is part of the Roman bath where, by tradition, Saint Demetrius was imprisoned and martyred, that it remains a place of worship, and that its entrance is beside the right-hand pier of the sanctuary. The Ministry page says an exhibition of finds from the church is on display in the crypt. The church publishes a schedule of services; visiting arrangements outside services are not given here.

Base yourself nearby

City

Thessaloniki

Thessaloniki is a city in Macedonia, Greece, on the Thermaic Gulf; the Greek National Tourism Organisation describes it as inhabited since prehistoric times, with archaeological sites, Byzantine churches and Ottoman monuments, and the White Tower on its waterfront. XTOUR maps the Roman and Byzantine monuments, churches and museums in the city itself, and keeps places elsewhere in Central Macedonia, such as Pella and Aigai at Vergina, apart from it.

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