Baptistery

Baptistery

The octagonal Baptistery, belonged to an earlier church. It was placed on the north-eastern corner of the Episcopal Church, and it was certainly used in the early years (9th – 10th century) of operation of the Episcopal Church. The built baptismal font was placed on the east side of the Baptistery, and not in its center, that happened in order to create a bit more space for the people participating in the mystery.

The Baptistery is carefully built with hewn stones in successive layers (Bakirtzis, Zikos 1984, 15). Plaster was used as a binder and between the horizontal layers of the stones, at the joints, slabs were placed in order to provide a more solid structure. Externally, the octagon is a normal one with its side to be 2,40m. Internally, it deviates as its walls don’t have equal width. The entrance opens to the north aisle of the church and has a width of 1,27m. Three windows are opened on the eastern, northern and western side. On a later state, the entrance of the temple got walled and the western window turned into an inlet opening. This probably meant that the baptistery was not used any more.

The baptismal font of the Baptistery is built. For its construction, small stones and mortar were used, while internally it has a hydraulic mortar coating. The baptismal font has a cruciform shape, with its 3 out of the 4 candle edges to be rounded.