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The church
The single-nave basilica was built in 1589 with a tall bell tower
Saint Spyridon Church is a Greek Orthodox church in the old town of Corfu, built in 1589. It is a single-nave basilica, and its bell tower, built in 1620, is the highest in the Ionian Islands.
The relics
The relics came from Constantinople in 1489 and passed as a dowry
According to traditional accounts, the relics of St. Spyridon and St. Theodora were brought to Corfu from Constantinople in 1489 by a Greek monk, Georgios Kalochairetis. His daughter Asimia received them as part of her dowry when she married into the Voulgari family.
A new church
The Venetian walls forced the relics to move in the 1580s
The private church of the Voulgaris family had to be demolished when the Venetians built the outer city fortifications after the siege of 1537. In the 1580s the saint's remains were moved to a new church within the fortifications, in the Campiello district.
The sarcophagus
The remains lie in a double sarcophagus, easy to reach
A chapel right of the iconostasis holds the remains in a double sarcophagus. The smaller one is surfaced in red velvet and has a removable bottom to change the slippers of the saint. There is no underground chamber, by design, to keep them accessible.
A lamp
In 1716 the Venetian Senate gave a lamp after the second siege
The Venetian Senate offered a gilded silver lamp bearing the reliefs of the Saint and the lion of St. Mark, in commemoration of the miracles of the Saint during the second great siege of Corfu in 1716.
“For the Salvation of Corfu, to the Patron Saint Spyridon, the Senate of Venice, 1716 AD”
Inscription on the lamp, in translation
Day 1, afternoon
It comes after The Liston. Then New Fortress.
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The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Saint Spyridon Church, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.