The Metropolitan Church of Our Lady Spelaiotissa, St Vlasios and St Theodora Augusta

The Church of the Holy Virgin of Spelaiotissa, St. Blaise Bishop of Sebastea and St. Theodora Augusta is the metropolitan church of Corfu and is located at 1 Mitropoleos St. This church was established as a Protopapas church on 22 October 1712 and in 1841 it was designated as a metropolitan church. The church came from the unification of the church of St. Blaise and the church of the Holy Virgin of Spileotissa. The unification took place in 1577 at the expense of noblemen and wealthy Corfiots. The name of the Virgin Mary "Spileotissa" is due to an adjacent cave from which the wider area got the name "Spilia". Continuous interventions have given the church its current form. Its temple architectural type, i.e. a three-aisled basilica, is rare in Ionian temple architecture. The façade comprising two large arched windows and a circular skylight with special decoration is characteristic. Post-Byzantine wall paintings are preserved in fragments on the holy bema. The portable icons and works of important Cretan and Ionian painters that adorn the temple are particularly important. The church houses the two-faced icon of the Virgin Mary of “Demosiana” and St. Arsenios, the island's palladium, which dates back to the end of the 14th century and is attributed to a workshop in Ioannina. The reliquary shrine with the relic of St. Theodora Augusta, empress and later nun, was brought to the metropolitan church from the church of Taxiarches (old metropolitan church). The metropolitan church celebrates on 11 February and 15 August. References: Καρύδης Σ. Χ., Τζιβάρα Π., «Ο ναός της Σπηλαιώτισσας στην πόλη της Κέρκυρας: Τα ίχνη των δομικών του μεταμορφώσεων στις αρχειακές πηγές», Πρακτικά του 2ου Εθνικού Συνεδρίου Ιστορίας των Δομικών Κατασκευών, επιμ. Ν. Λιανός, Πολυτεχνική Σχολή Ξάνθης Δ.Π.Θ., Ξάνθη, 5-7 Δεκεμβρίου 2014. Παπαγεωργίου Σ.Κ., Ιστορία της εκκλησίας της Κέρκυρας, Κέρκυρα 1920, Αδελ. Γ. Ασπιώτη 1920, σ. 203. Βοκοτόπουλος Π., Εικόνες της Κέρκυρας, Αθήνα 1990.