Trimartiri Cathedral

Trimartiri church is the impressive Metropolitan Cathedral of Chania city. It is located in the middle of Chalidon street, the central street of Chania Old Town. In front of the cathedral lies is a nice square with nicel shops around it. The church is called “Trimartiri” (meaning “of the three martyrs” in Greek), due to its three aisles. It is dedicated to the Presentation of Virgin Mary. The first church on the site was built in the 14th century by the Venetians. The Ottomans later desecrated the church and turned it into a soap factory. During that time, on a corner of the building there was the sacred icon of the Presentation of Virgin Mary, and it became an unofficial shrine for the Christians of Chania city. In the middle of the 19th century, the soap factory was almost bankrupt, and there was unrest among the local Christians, who demanded it to become a Christian church again. This happened in 1860, when the present-day Trimartiri church was built. In the years that followed, the church sustained heavy damages in the Cretan revolution of 1897 and again in the Nazi bombardment of Crete in 1941, but each time it was rebuilt to its former glory.