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The church of Agia Aikaterini
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The Church of Agia Aikaterini (St. Catherine’s) is located on the southwest edge of Ano Poli in Thessaloniki. Its Byzantine name is not known, nor can it be identified with any of the churches in Thessaloniki mentioned in sources. Whatever the case may be, information provided by the monument itself suggests that it was originally dedicated to Christ, leading some scholars to identify it as the catholicon of the Monastery of Christ Almighty.

Agia Aikaterini is a composite four-column cross-in-square church, with a peristyle ending in two symmetrical chapels to the east. It has five domes - the central one covering the main nave, and four smaller ones on the corners of the peristyle.

The monument’s exterior is highly refined, forming a gradually scaled building mass in elegant proportions, with a series of distinct decorative elements (dogtooth courses , blind arches and niches, half columns , two and three light-windows , openings with superimposed arches, ceramoplastic ornaments). A strong horizontal axis is created by a marble cornice   dividing the cube-shaped main body in two. The church has been dated to between the late 13th and early 14th century, though evidence of an older building incorporated in the catholicon points to an even earlier date.

Only a small portion of the original wall paintings have survived in the interior; based on stylistic features they been dated to the early 14th century, circa 1315-1325. Prelates and the Communion of the Apostles are depicted in the sanctuary apse, with prophets and angels appearing around a now destroyed representation of the Pantocrator in the central dome. The iconographic programme in the nave includes scenes from the miracles of Christ, while the western section of the peristyle has depictions of individual saints, mainly ascetics and Pillar Saints .

The fact that only a limited potion of the decoration has survived is due to significant modifications occurring when the church was converted into a mosque in the Ottoman period. Extensive maintenance work was carried out in 1947-1951 to lend the church its present form, followed by more work on the roof and vaults in the 1980s and 1990s.
 


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