Patrick Comerford
I spent most of the day in Iraklion yesterday (18 April 2025), where I enjoyed a long and lingering lunch with an old friend I have known for almost 20 years.
I had taken a morning bus from Rethymnon, where I am staying, and arrived in time to visit some churches in Iraklion, including Saint Minas Cathedral, one of the largest and most impressive churches in Greece, the smaller original Church of Saint Minas beneath it, the Church of Saint Titus, the Church of Saint Matthew of the Sinaites, and the ruined Dominican Church of Saint Peter near the harbour and which is undergoing restoration.
In the early afternoon I also climbed the old Venetian wall that surround the old town and harbour and visited once again the grave and Nikos Kazantzakis, who is the nearest Crete has to having its own national writer.
Iraklion is the capital of Crete, and the Metropolitan Cathedral of Agios Minas (῾Ιερός Μητροπολιτικός Ναός ῾Αγίου Μηνᾶ) is the seat of the Archbishop of Crete. It is the largest church in Crete and is dedicated to Saint Minas the Martyr and Wonderworker (285-309 CE), the patron saint and protector of Iraklion.
The cathedral was built from 1862 to 1895, and took over three decades to complete because the Cretan Revolution of 1866-1869 interrupted the progress of building work. It was built to replace the smaller and older church of Agios Minas, which still stands beside the cathedral, sharing the small open space with the much older 16th century Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai.
The small church of Saint Minas, still known to people in Iraklion as ‘little Agios Minas’, dates back to the Venetian period. It was rebuilt 280 years ago in 1735 at the expense of the Monastery of Saint Catherine of Mount Sinai, and became the seat and cathedral of the Bishop and the Diocese of Crete – the first since the Turkish conquest of the island in 1669.
The smaller church two-aisled has changed little since it was rebuilt and many of the icons and images that have survived inside date from the 18th century and have great artistic value. The north aisle is dedicated to Panagia Pantanassa (Ypapanti) and the south aisle to Agios Minas. The iconostasis, especially that of the Ypapanti aisle, is an excellent example of wood carving.
Saint Minas became the patron saint and protector of Iraklion during the Turkish occupation of Crete. According to a local legend, he miraculously converted the Turkish troop commander from being a sworn enemy to acting as a protector of the Christians.
According to local tradition, Saint Minas protected the church and the city from destruction. It is said that almost 200 years ago, when Christians in Iraklion were packed into the small Church of Saint Minas for the Easter liturgy in 1826, they were attacked by an Ottoman force preparing to massacre them.
Suddenly before them, the Ottomans saw a young, brave horseman waving a sword. They were scared and backed away. The Christians believed that the horseman was Saint Minas who was there to protect them and their city.
The writer Nikos Kazantzakis refers to Saint Minas in his book Captain Michalis, published in the UK as Freedom and Death: ‘On midnight, when the town is in deep sleep, St Minas descends from his icon and sets off for the quays, crossing through the neighbourhoods of the Greeks; when he finds a door open, he locks it; when he finds a Christian ill and sees light in his window, he stands, pleading to God to heal him.’
When the small 18th century church could no longer accommodate the needs of Christians in Iraklion, demand grew for building a new cathedral. The site bought for a new church had once been the garden of a Turk.
Athanasios Moussis from Epirus, the architect of the new cathedral, was also the architect of the Church of Saint Titos Church in Iraklion. The foundation stone was laid on 25 March 1862, but the outbreak of the Cretan revolution in 1866 put a stop to building work, which did not resume until 1883.
Tradition says that at one point when the cathedral was being built, there was no money to pay the workers. Students and the people of Iraklion formed a human chain from the port to the church to deliver the building materials, and the cathedral was completed 130 years ago, on 18 April 1895.
The cathedral is a cruciform-shaped church with a central dome that stands on high spandrels. The external maximum dimensions are 43.2 metres in length and 29.5 metres in width and it has a surface area of 1,350 sq m. There are two bell towers, one in the north-east corner and the other in the south-east corner.
Inside, the cathedral is in the shape of a three-aisle basilica. The south transept is dedicated to Saint Titos and the north transept in dedicated to the Ten Holy Martyrs of Crete.
Iraklion was severely damaged during the Battle of Crete in 1941 in World War II, part of the cathedral was damaged by bombs in May 1941. Two bombs fell without exploding and one of them remains on display at the north side of the cathedral.
When Nikos Kazantzakis died in Freiburg in Germany 1957, he was denied church ceremonies in Athens. However, Aristotle Onassis had his body was flown back to Crete, where he lay in state in Agios Minas Cathedral in Iraklion.
The Archbishop of Athens had demanded his excommunication, but the Patriarch of Constantinople insisted that the Church of Crete was independent and part of the Ecumenical Patriarch.
His funeral took place on 5 November 1957, and a priest officiated at his burial on the Martinengo Bastion on the Venetian walls, overlooking the city and Agios Minas Cathedral – giving lie to the popular claim that Kazantzakis had died an excommunicate and was buried without the rites of the Church.
The original wood-carved iconostasis or icon screen in the cathedral has been replaced with one made of marble from Tinos, and the same too with the bishop’s throne, both made by Anastasios Orlandos. The frescoes and wall paintings are the work of Stelios Kartakis, who followed faithfully the principles of Byzantine icon painting, and they were completed in 1978.
The hundredth anniversary of the opening of the cathedral was celebrated with great solemnity 30 years ago (1995).
The Church of Saint Catherine of Sinai next to the cathedral and in the same square as the older Church of Saint Minas is now a museum of Christian art.
Saint Minas continues to be revered as the patron and protector of Iraklion, and he is celebrated with a public holiday in the city on 11 November each year.
