Hagios Ioannis

Department Archive
Collection Byzantine Research Fund
Reference No. BRF/02/01/10/007
Level Item
Place Chalandritsa
Dates 1905-1909
Donor/Creator Traquair, Mr Ramsay
Scope and Content View from the south-west. Further annotation in pecil survives at the back of the photograph.
Further information The village of Chalandritsa lies 12 miles south of Patras. It preserves the name of the barony confirmed by Champlitte to Audebert de la Tremouille after the Frankish invasion of the Peloponnese that started soon after the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders in 1204 and was completed between 1246 and 1250. The barony survived undivided until the end of the 13th c.

Hagios Ioannis is a cell church of four bays divided by cross arches with a polygonal apse and a single arched belfry at the west end. The narthex, remains of which still survive, must have been a later addition. Above the main door that has a quarter-round jamb moulding and a pointed arch is a niche with a pointed arch too set in a square frame. The church is built of rough rubble. Its date is much disputed. Certainly, it does not belong to the early Latin or the Byzantine period. It has been suggested that the church may have been built during the 15th or the 18th c.