Church of the Nativity of Christ

In the central square of Agios Efstratios rises the parish church of the Nativity of Christ, a three-aisled basilica with a women’s gallery, exonarthex and bell tower, built in the 1970s at the expense of the Hellenic Royal Gendarmerie. The carved wooden iconostasis with despotic icons stands out, and the church keeps important ecclesiastical relics — icons, vestments, books and vessels — saved from rural chapels destroyed in the 1968 earthquake. On the same site there had been an earlier church also dedicated to the Nativity of Christ, which was demolished due to severe earthquake damage. From that imposing structure survive only the bell tower’s dedicatory inscription, a few marble spolia and the stone Holy Table, scattered behind the sanctuary. With its loss, the island was deprived of an emblematic monument, whose grandeur is not reflected in the later building.