Paleochristian and Byzantine monuments of Thessaloniki
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How it came to be
Thessaloniki was founded as a port in 315 BC, later became a Roman provincial capital, and was one of the first bases from which Christianity spread. From the 4th to the 15th century its churches were built on two plans, the Greek cross and the three-aisled basilica, and they shaped church building across the Byzantine world.
The church of the city's patron, Saint Demetrius, began as a small oratory built over a Roman bath in the early 4th century. After repeated fires it was rebuilt as a five-aisled basilica in 629-634, and its mosaics survive with an inscription giving thanks that the city was saved from a Slavic raid in 615.
When the Ottomans took the city in 1430, the Christian monuments were not destroyed. Hagios Demetrios served as a mosque from 1493 to 1912, then lost its roof and upper walls in the great fire of 1917 and took decades to restore. In 1988 fifteen monuments, from the city walls to the churches, were inscribed as World Heritage.
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