Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens (Mitropoli)
Its walls are built from the marble of 72 churches torn down to raise it.
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Greece's national cathedral took three architects and 20 years after King Otto laid the cornerstone on Christmas Day 1842. Inside lie two saints executed under Ottoman rule: a woman martyred in 1589 for ransoming Greek women enslaved in Ottoman harems, and a patriarch hanged in 1821 whose body was thrown into the Bosphorus and later rescued by Greek sailors.
What to look for
- Saint Philothei's silver reliquary — her bones are still visible inside it
- Patriarch Gregory V's tomb, containing remains pulled from the Bosphorus by Greek sailors after his 1821 hanging
- Mitropoleos Square's two statues: Constantine XI, the last Byzantine emperor, and Archbishop Damaskinos, Greece's WWII regent
The small Church of St. Eleftherios sits directly to the south — a striking contrast in scale right next door.
Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens (Mitropoli) is one of 36 sights worth the detour in Athens, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Athens pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Athens
- ParthenonA temple built to celebrate a war victory that went on to become a church, a mosque, and a gunpowder depot — blown apart in 1687 and still being reassembled.
- Acropolis of AthensA flat-topped rock 150 m above the city where Pericles spent the 5th century BC erecting the buildings that still define Athens.
- Platonic Academy (Akadimia Platonos)Aristotle studied here for twenty years before leaving to found his own school — and the word "academy" has followed ever since.
- Classical AthensDemocracy was invented here in 508 BC — and it took a bribe at Delphi to get it started.
- Olympic Stadium Athens "Spyros Louis"Santiago Calatrava's white steel roof arches over the same track where Athens opened the 2004 Olympics — and hosted three Champions League finals.
- ErechtheionThe one Greek temple that broke every rule of classical architecture — and scholars still can't agree on what it was actually called.