Church of Agios Stefanos in Mantamados

The church of Agios Stefanos is located at “Palios”, at a distance of 10 kilometers south of the village of Mantamados, in the northeastern part of the island of Lesbos.

The choice of the coastline location for the temple’s building is related to the archipelago’s (Aegean Sea) islands recovery after 961, when safety in the Aegean was reinstated.

The church, declared as a historical monument under the protection of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Lesbos (B.D. 30-09-1938, Government Gazette 373/A/14-10-1938), is a cross-in-square church of the simple tetrastyle (four-column) cruciform inscribed type with pendentive dome with cylindrical drum (of which only the base survives). The sanctuary occupies the eastern part of the cross-shaped square structure. On the eastern side, the three semicircular arches of the sanctuary stand out, with the central one being higher and wider than the other two. Both the central arch and the lateral arches have single-lobed small windows with brick arches made of radially placed bricks. The monument’s austere nature is enhanced by the sparse use of ceramic decoration, which is only used on the windows of the arches, and by the absence of cornices.

References to the church are found after the middle of the 19th c. The British traveler Charles Newton mentions that the church remained roofless and abandoned until the mid-19th c. (1852), on the occasion that the dome collapsed together with its cylindrical drum, probably due to an earthquake, sweeping away the central parts of the vaults of the cross antennas underneath the drum as well as parts of the pendentives, while wooden beams and a tile covering were put in its place. The only door in the narthex’s west side, a later addition made not long after the church’s original construction, leads to the entrance.

Due to the intensive use of cement, the monument contains a number of late modifications, the majority of which are 20th c. extensions. Indicative are the roofed forecourt to the west of the temple, as well as the later construction of the temple floor of the interior. The latter was made of two-coloured grey and white pebbles and it still preserves a variety of decorative motifs, including the distinctive umbilical with a double-headed eagle formed at the intersection of the cross’s antennae. The narthex, which was later added, and the temple’s walls are built with coarse but elaborate masonry, in distinct, almost same in height, layers of semi-cut stone from local red-gray colored trachite.

The blind arches on the long sides corresponding to the internal vaults, add plasticity to the church and help date the church of Agios Stefanos at the end of the 10th c. by connecting it with the style of Constantinople.

The tripartite arrangement of the narthex roof occurs in Helladic churches of the 10th c. Middle Byzantine churches are known for their brick arches and coarse masonry jambs that frame the windows in the central apse and the roofs of corner apartments with longitudinal semi-cylindrical arches. Elements, however, that reinforce the early use of the site and possibly of the monument are the portable findings discovered during the opening of the drainage trench, between anterides (buttress) and the tombs that were revealed. These components also support the site’s history as a burial location before the platform was built, which dates to the 12th c.

The monument had to be fixed, restored, and promoted due to its poor state of preservation, which was brought on by its abandonment in the post-Byzantine period, a combination of dynamic stresses, material aging, and natural wear and tear, as well as the collapse of the dome’s antennas due to an earthquake and the descending moisture that had damaged the coating and the mortar used to bind the stones. The care was initially provided by the Religious Council of the Holy Church of the Most Holy Archangels of Mantamados and subsequently, since 2017, by the Ephorate of Antiquities of Lesbos.

Location

Municipality: Western Lesbos

Municipal Section: Mantamados

Location: Palios

3D Images

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