A sightseeing walk of the city should definitely include this church! It is built up to its older ruins, an Early Christian church of 5th century A.C which was discovered in 1928 by the archaeologist Kostantinos Kourouniotis. Its actual form could architectonically have characterized as a single nave arched basilica with later additions as the belfry, the wall paintings, adorned the interior area, and the portable icon of saint Zacharias aged in 1912. On the contrary, the first form of the church, as the excavations shown, was completely different. It was built with three novels, a semicircular arch and two colonnades with five columns each!
According to the myth, the church’s restoration was due to a children’s dream! More specifically, at the end of 19th century, the first male primary school was located at Iroon square and the derelict church was used as a meeting place for students. Three students revealed to their parents that they were seeing the same dream for three days. They dreamed about a man standing at church’s yard claimed that he was saint Zaharias and the church was his home. The dream was considered as a God’s sign and the church was shortly conserved by the residents. According to old people’s tradition most of the times dreams could be symbolize a prophecy or a divine sigh! Since then, Saint Zaharias is the protector of the city and the locals celebrate his nameday on 5th of September with a grant feast. It’s also impressive the fact that this is the only church devoted to saint Zaharias around the whole country!
