Church of Estavromenos in Kythera

The Church of Estavromenos was built around 1660 by the Bishop of Kythera Philotheos Darmaros. From a written testimony of 1560, it seems that there was a church of Estavromenos before. At the entrance of the Church there is a built-in inscription with the coat of arms of the Darmaros family. The same Bishop Philotheos also built Panagia Myrtidiotissa in Monemvasia. Inside the Church and in the courtyard were buried the members of the Darmaros family, who had the jus patronato of the Church, as well as the other parishioners, including many refugees from Crete and Morea. During Great Lent, the Church hosts, according to an ancient custom, the icon of Myrtidiotissa, which is the heirloom of Kythera. The icon remains in the Church during Great Lend and is placed in an ornate shrine created by a Zakynthian artist in 1806.