Hai-Strategos, Boularioi

Department Archive
Collection Byzantine Research Fund
Reference No. BRF/02/01/14/055
Level Item
Place Mani
Dates 1909?
Donor/Creator Traquair, Mr Ramsay
Scope and Content View of interior showing doors and lintels. The photograph is annotated in pencil at the back.
Further information The area in the middle of the Peloponnese, on the Laconia/Messenia border, was known as early as the 10th c. as the ‘Mani’. It was occupied by the Slavs in the early Medieval period and was christianised in the 10th c. by Hosios Nikon. There are scores of Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches in the Mani: the first major phase of building activity in the region seems to run from the late 10th to the later 12th c.

The church of Archangel Michael (Hai-Strategos) at Boularioi, Mani, is of the simple-distyle type with dome and a narthex. The church, which is built of rubble in the lower part of the walls and of regular cloisonné above a certain level, has been dated to the first half of the 11th c. A small barrel-vaulted propylon was added to the west side of the church in the 12th c.. The monument is decorated with good quality wall-paintings in extensive iconographic cycles.