International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Ioanna Stoufi-Poulimenou
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece; 
[e-mail]
Regarding the Dating of the Church of Panaghia Gorgoepicoos in Athens
The small church of Panaghia Gorgoepikoos in Athens is a uniquum in the Byzantine 
Architecture and it has been correctly linked to a Byzantine “classicism”. The uniqueness of the 
monument lies not only in the use but also in the organization of a large number of ancient 
sculptures for the embellishment of the exterior surface of the walls, like an ancient temple or a 
church resulting from conversion of an ancient temple.
The dating of the church has been a point of argument, as it has been dated from the 9
th
to 
the 15
th
century. However the end of the 12
th
century is proposed as the dominant dating of the 
monument. This last dating has been based on the construction and the morphology of the church, 
but it has been mainly linked to the action of the scholar bishop Michael Choniates.
The recently proposed dating to the 15
th
century has been based on an ancient inscription on 
a block of the epistyle in the western corner of the south wall of the church. This inscription was 
read by Cyriacus of Ancona, who first visited Athens in 1436, but he did not make any reference to 
the church. So it has been suggested that this inscription was elsewhere when Cyriacus read it and, 
therefore, the church was erected after Cyriacus had visited the town, probably after the Ottomans’ 
occupation of Athens (1456).
However, neither this evidence nor the quality of the construction allows us to assert that the 
church was erected during this period. On the other hand the connection with Michael Choniates is 
totally hypothetical and should not be taken for granted. So the dating of the monument seems that 
it still remains an open issue. Structural and morphological data and especially the dating of certain 
sculptures (spolia), that are fitted to the exterior walls of the church entertain the presumption to 
date it after the 12
th
century and during the period of the Latin rule. Of course, it is not always easy 
to distinguish between churches that were built after 1204 from those ones of the end of the 12
th
century, as previous construction methods and formats are reproduced and some western influences 
are not always visible.

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