Some kilometers distant from the city of Kavala, there is another very well known village called Nea Karvali, there is kept the miraculous corps of Saint “Gregorios Theologos”, which was brought to Greece from Kappadocia, together with the refugees that came back in Greece in 1924.
Fifteen kilometers from Kavala towards the city of Drama, we can see the remains of the first Christian city of Europe the city of Philippoi, where Apostle Paul preached for the Christian world for the first time in the European region in 49 A.D. and baptized the first European Christian Lydia, in the waters of River Zigaris.
MACEDONIA CITIES Photo Gallery
The church of “Panagia Eikosifonissa”, Drama On the Mount Paggaio, near Nikisiani, Osios Germanos built -during the 4th century- the unique monastery of “Panagia Eikosifonissa”, which was a center of Hellenism in the region for many centuries. Every year a huge pilgrimage takes place there.
If someone considers traveling to the city of Drama there is an Ecclesiastic museum that one can visit (for further information contact: +30 (0) 5210 32 362) housed in the Episcopal Headquarters. Rare icons are exhibited and they age since the 13th century; there are also some heirlooms granted from refugees from Asia Minor and the regions of Pontus, when they came back in Greece 1922-23. The Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches in the city of Drama disclose of a great architecture and art and there someone can see the union between folkloric art and the influence by the Mount Athos; the monasteries of “Analipsi tou Sotiros” in the village Taxiarches, the monastery of “Metamorfosi tou Sotiros” in Prasinada, the monastery of “Agios Minas” in Perichora are all together a network of pilgrimage and of cultural tourism as well.
The churches of the Armenian culture and community are also of great importance and architecture; there are also great Muslim mosques (mostly in the cities of Komotini and Xanthi, and the famous mosque of Vagiazit in Didymoteicho).
