Church of Saint George Tsengelkioy

The Church of Saint George Chrysokeramidas was so named long ago on account of its roof tiles whose gold-green colour shone like gold when seen from afar.

The church may occupy the site of the Byzantine Monastery of Metanoias (Repentance), built by Empress Theodora for repentant sinful women. Extant inscriptions give the year 1830 and the names of those who laboured to erect it. This is another beautiful church with several relief carvings inset into the exterior of its walls - in the wall to the right of the courtyard door is a listed Hellenistic relief depicting a funeral feast. The enclosure contains a small cemetery.

When we speak of Constantinopolitian and Asia Minor Greeks in general we often overlook what we have mentioned elsewhere, namely, the Greeks whose ancestry lay anywhere in the wider Greek world, in other words who had participated in that constant toing and froing from one side of the Aegean to the other, which ceased only in 1922. It is therefore pertinent to quote the epigram inscribed on the tomb of a tailor, expert in working gold and silver threads, who died in 1877.

Before my cold gravestone, lovers of the art,
yes, you, o sempsters, my dear pupils,
tarry awhile and sprinkle it with a tear,
'tis Anastasios Tzetzis'; consider for a moment
I've reckoned it was sixty May months I taught
the art to you, a stranger in a strange country.
Epirus it is that claims me, except every land is home,
yet where his grave will be no man can tell.
You, my wife Loxandra, grieve not nor sorrow not,
I await you there in the vaults of heaven.

At one time the garden of the church descended to the sea, the village landing-place, but now the main road has cut off the church from the shore.

Ismini Kapandai
Churches in Constantinople
Nikos Ghinis – Constantinos Stratos