Families maintain 1,000 private chapels in Greek island for faith, community

More than a thousand chapels dot the Greek island of Tinos. In a rare centuries-old tradition, the mostly simple, room-sized stone structures are painstakingly maintained by the ordinary families that own them.

These private whitewashed chapels with miniature bell towers belong to octogenarians and Generation Z, goat farmers and hotel owners, Orthodox Christians and Catholics who worship daily and de facto atheists.

What they have in common is an unwavering dedication to preserving the diminutive churches their ancestors built — and to throwing a liturgical and community celebration called panigiri around the feast day of the Virgin Mary or saint they honour.

"This tradition and custom that connect us between members of the family is part of our identity. I'm fully committed to maintaining and passing them down to my children," said Ioanna Krikelli during the September festival at her family's church, Agios Sostis, established in the 17th century.

Perched on a rocky promontory on the Aegean Sea facing Mykonos, the chapel with its twin bell towers topped by simple crosses hosted an hourlong evening liturgy. Hundreds of faithful packed the front yard festooned with small Greek flags and string lights.

"What you see here is very deep," Krikelli said, as family members — including two who had travelled from Iceland and the United Kingdom for the occasion — served homemade raki liqueur and sweets after the service.

Greek island chapels galore For centuries, European aristocrats built private chapels, usually in their palaces. Today, many homes in predominantly Orthodox Greece have a tiny chapel nearby. Beyond the spiritual, tax breaks for houses of worship can extend to attached buildings.

But in the Cycladic islands, particularly Sifnos and Tinos, there's more than one chapel per 10 residents. The reasons trace back to past empires, which successively oversaw these strategic islands providing a bridge between Europe and Asia.

The Venetians, who ruled Tinos from the 13th to the early 18th century, granted land rights to Tinos' farmers as a buffer to the Ottomans. After taking over, the Ottomans allowed the locals to keep and build hundreds of chapels on their farmland, said Maria Vidali, an architect from Tinos who researched the chapels.

Then there are the many chapels built by sailors' families as vows for their safe passage, those constructed for deceased family members, and those erected in honour of the Virgin Mary, Vidali added. One of Greece's most important Marian shrines, Panagia Evaggelistria, is in Tinos' main town.

Even though almost all chapels share the iconic Cycladic style — cubic forms, flat roofs, touches of blue paint on mostly white surfaces — "every mason added his own flourish," said the Rev. Markos Foskolos. The Tinos native has been a Catholic priest on the island for more than 50 years and authored its history.

Festivals at family chapels gather island communities Most chapels are always open, with a supply of oil for candle wicks as well as candy and bottled water for pilgrims.

"It's as if they expect visitors," said Nikos Levantis at Agios Giorgos, a friend's 200-year-old chapel squeezed among massive granite boulders.

Levantis' family owns three chapels, and he recalls as a child carrying blankets for sleepovers with a dozen cousins before the morning liturgy. His mother, Eleftheria Levanti, remembers how the festivals were essential social events for islanders decades ago. Young men often proposed by putting a flower alongside meat on their fork and handing it to a girl, she said.

Offering food to pilgrims was a practical need, Foskolos said, when people walked long distances to reach the chapels and did so while fasting before receiving Communion. Feeding poor people was also part of the social contract for those who owned farmland.

"All this helps to form a sense of community. In these little chapels, one becomes a brother with everyone else," Foskolos said.

Community gathering remains a crucial part of today's celebrations, though many are scaled down.

Brothers Romanos and Konstantinos Vasilopoulos host about 80 people for the feast at their family church, Panagia Faneromeni, built in the early 1800s over the vestiges of a 17th century chapel. There's still no running water or electricity, and a giant eucalyptus leans into the second-floor kitchen with views to Mykonos and beyond.

Faith stands firm in chapels, even if it falters elsewhere They're keeping up the custom together with two cousins "to honor the family and religion and tradition," Romanos Vasilopoulos said. Even though he's not a regular Sunday service goer, he finds something unique at his chapel.

"The feeling is serenity. I lose the time here. It's just the stones and the view, and they carry stories and memories," he said.

For Levantis, prayer also feels different at the family chapels.

"It's better here, because you find God closer. You can concentrate more on faith," he said.

Steeped in family and community, the chapels and their festivals can become tools of evangelization, according to Foskolos.

"Because people go there … and there are so many that you can find one every day of the year," the Catholic priest said.

His sister, Bernadette Foskolos, helped set up at the Agios Sostis festival — an Orthodox celebration — and also takes care of her own chapel, Agios Athanasios, near the inland village of Steni. Its walls follow the uneven contours of stones and a touch of blue tops the rounded bell tower.

"When they offered me the church, I was just enthusiastic," she said of being made caretaker of the family chapel, where she decorates the altar with fresh flowers.

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