Saint Spyridon Church

The Saint Spyridon Church is a Greek Orthodox Church located in Corfu, Greece. It was built in the 1580s. It houses the relics of Saint Spyridon and it is located in the old town of Corfu. It is a single-nave basilica and its bell tower is the highest in the Ionian Islands. It is the most famous church in Corfu. According to traditional accounts, in 1489, after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the relics of St. Spyridon and St. Theodora Augusta, were brought to Corfu from Constantinople by Greek monk Georgios Kalochairetis, who was also a person of wealth, and were kept as property of his family. Later, when his daughter Asimia married one of the scions of the Voulgari family in Corfu she was given the remains of the saint as part of her dowry. Subsequently the relics of St. Spyridon were housed in a

private church owned by the Voulgaris family. The Voulgaris church was located in the San Rocco suburb of Corfu city but had to be demolished when the outer city fortifications were built by the Venetians to protect the citadel after the first great siege of Corfu by the Ottomans in 1537. In the 1580s, after the demolition of the private church, the saint's remains were moved to their present location in a new church which was built within the city fortifications in the Campiello district of the old town.The bell tower of the church is similar in design to its contemporary Greek Orthodox church of San Giorgio dei Greci located in Venice.