02/12/2007
Ecclesiastical Museum of the Holy Metropolis of Alexandroupolis, Traianoupolis and Samothrace

Michailidou Natasa Source: C.E.T.I. © Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace

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The Alexandroupolis Ecclesiastical Museum is housed in the neoclassical listed building of the Leontarideios School. It is a two-storey building containing 8 exhibition rooms and dating from 1909. The building was installed here in 1982; in 1998, the Metropolis decided to renovate it according to contemporary museological thinking.
The rich and variable collection of the museum (more than 400 items) contains metalwork items, marble artefacts, sacerdotal vestments, texts, portable icons, wood carving etc. Its collection dates from the 12th to the 20th centuries and includes items from both the modern region of the Metropolis of Alexandroupolis and the city of Ainos in eastern Thrace. During the population exchange between Greeks and Turks in 1922, refugees from Ainos brought with them several items, now exhibited in the museum.
The 8 exhibition rooms are divided in the following fields:
1. Church – Education – Society
2. Wood carving – Liturgical items
3. Liturgical Vestments
4. The art of Icon painting
5. East – West: Window to transcendence. Window to the world.
6. Orthodox Icon Painting
7. The Triumphal Church
8. The Church