Churches / Church of the Holy Mother of God – Krani
Church of the Holy Mother of God – Krani
The Church of the Holy Mother of God is one of the smaller three-aisled churches of the kind built mostly in the 19th century. According to an inscription carved into a stone in the south wall, it was built in 1865. Most of the interior walls have been re-plastered. Fragments of the original 19th-century wall paintings survive on the north wall of the nave, right beside the iconostasis. There are more wall paintings in the altar area. As is usual, the upper part of the apse shows the Holy Mother of God, and the lower zone shows the bishops St Basil the Great and St John Chrysostom, led by the archangels Michael and Gabriel. The small niche of the prothesis shows the dead Christ from the waist up, and the niche of the diaconicon shows the first martyr and deacon, St Stephen.
Near the village of Krani, the local people built two more small churches. The Church of St Nicholas dates from the early 20th century, more precisely from 1925. There is no record of when the small single-nave church of St Elijah was built. Most likely it too was rebuilt on the foundations of an older place of worship in the early 20th century.

