Koimesis tes Theotokou - Hagios Ioannis - Hagioi Theodoroi

Department Archive
Collection Byzantine Research Fund
Reference No. BRF/01/01/10/001
Level Item
Place Chalandritsa
Dates 1905-1909
Donor/Creator Traquair, Mr Ramsay
Scope and Content Longitudinal section and ground plan of the Koimesis church - Longitudinal section and ground plan of the Hagios Ioannis church - Ground plan of the Hagioi Theodoroi church. The drawing is entitled in ink: 'Chalandriza Elis Greece'. It is labelled in ink: 'Church of the Koimesis'. 'Hagios Ioannis', Hagios Theodoros'. Further annotation in ink survives.
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. The Koimesis (Dormition of the Virgin) is a hall church of three bays divided by cross arches. The central bay is covered by a dome, the end bays by barrel vaults. To the east the church terminates in a square bay, covered by a dome vault, with two round-arched niches on the north side and one on the south. The main (west) door of the church has been modernised. Above it is a small niche with a pointed arch and on the gable an arched belfry. The masonry is of rough rubble.

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 theses churches may have been built during the 15th or the 18th c.
Reference 1924. Journal of the Royal Institute of British Architects. 31 (2): 84, fig.34.