Ecclesiastical Museum of Alexandroupoli - Enou 18

Nice !!

A Model Museum

For those interested in churches

Very interesting museum with remarkable programs for children.

Historically, the area of ​​the current Diocese belonged to the Diocese of Traianoupolis and later to the Diocese of Ainos and the Diocese of Maronia. In 1885 the then village of Dedeagats (today's Alexandroupolis) was separated from the Diocese of Maronia and annexed to the Diocese of Ainos. After the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the population exchange and the loss of Eastern Thrace, the Diocese of Ainos had territories in both Greece and Turkey. Thus, in November 1922, the Ecumenical Patriarch Meletios Metaxakis issued a synodal act, by which the Diocese of Alexandroupolis was founded, with the following reasoning: the part of the province of Ainos in Western Thrace, due to the political conditions, to the part of the same province in Eastern Thrace, they are under different political conditions and due to the gathering and settlement of thousands of expatriate refugees there, it needs immediate and continuous pastoral care and supervision, approved as detached from the part of the Eastern Thrace Ainos and after a suitable arrangement of the neighboring provinces of Maronia and Xanthi, formed a new Metropolis under the name of Metropolis of Alexandroupolis, occupying a position in the 2nd column of the Constitution directly in front of the Metropolis of Philadelphia [1]. By the same act, it was stipulated that the respective Metropolitan would bear the title "superior and exarch of Rodopi". The Ecclesiastical Museum of Alexandroupolis, housed in the building of the old Leontarideio Urban School for Boys (1909). The first Metropolitan of Alexandroupolis was elected on November 17, 1922, with the proclamation of the new Metropolis, the then Ankara Gervasios Sarasitis (1922-1934). He was the first organizer of the Metropolis of Alexandroupolis under adverse circumstances. His tomb is located next to the Holy Temple of Agios Eleftherios in Alexandroupolis. The current Metropolitan is Mr. Anthimos. The Diocese today has about 80 clergy, 61 parishes, 3 Holy Pilgrimages, 2 Institutional Churches, 2 Holy Monasteries, 3 charities and 20 cemeteries.

Leontaridis School A very beautiful neoclassical building with very interesting exhibits of Christianity The Ecclesiastical Museum of the Holy Metropolis of Alexandroupolis houses the collection of ecclesiastical objects gathered from the temples and monasteries of the ecclesiastical province of the metropolis. The bulk of the works dates back to the 18th and 19th centuries. Few exhibits, mostly palatites and few portable icons, are dated back to the 15th-16th-17th centuries. The Ecclesiastical Museum of Alexandroupolis is housed in the Leontarodios School next to the Cathedral. Portable images are at the heart of the collection of the museum and, at the same time, its most important and largest part and represent every category. There are temple images (despotic, twelfth, apostolic), worship (intended for the wall or for a particular pilgrim) and images of various sizes for private worship. The collection also includes triptychs, individual triplets, a carved wooden cross, two Crucifixion crucifixes, a picture of Epiphany's Lament, two sad and two-fold of intent from wood. In terms of the agenda, the images cover the entire scale of the Orthodox dogmatic hierarchy. There is a considerable variety of well-established figurative types of Christ, the Virgin Mary, as well as many saints, which correspond to the ecclesiology and hymnology of the Church, as well as to the needs for worship and functional use. There is a preference for specific types of Theotokos (Kikokotissa) and certain saints, such as Saint Charalampos. There are also some types that are rare in the post-Byzantine painting, such as the Agia Zoni, which seem to be subdued. Interesting inscriptions include the names of painters, donors and donors. The Ecclesiastical Museum is under the direct supervision of the Holy Metropolis of Alexandroupolis

An Ecclesiastical museum with very good and old hagiographies in the city of Alexandroupolis is worth seeing.

A listed building since 1974, the Leontarideios School for Boys, began construction in 1907 and was completed in 1909 on the site granted by the Turkish Bey Hadjisafet (last Turkish commander before liberation) to the Greek Community. The building was built with a donation from the benefactor Antonis Leontaridis or Antonakis Efentis, born in 1865 in Maronia, from whom it took its name. The School brought to its metope Italian statues representing the nine muses. Today these statues are located at the entrance of the building that now functions as an Ecclesiastical Museum with more than 400 sacred relics. At the inauguration of the building in 1909 was placed by the Metropolitan Ioakeim Georgiadis the inscription "LEONTARIDEIOS ARENON DEDEAGATS 1909". On the west side of the building is a monument to the Jewish Holocaust and a monument to the Russian army that liberated the city during the Russo-Turkish War.