Despoina Skoulariki Source: C.E.T.I. © Region of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace

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Built on the ruins of an earlier Christian chapel dedicated to Apostle Paul, the Octagon was the metropolitan church of the city of Philippi.
This building of the early 5th century AD to the east of the Roman agora (forum) is a complex consisting of the church dedicated to Apostle Paul and other ancillary rooms. The church survived until the mid-7th century AD and although it had the form of a cube exteriorly, the interior was octagonal. A stoa leading to the narthex demonstrates that the church was accessed by the Via Egnatia, while other guesthouses and ancillary rooms on its west side communicated with the Commercial street. The upper galleries and the dome rested on a colonnade; the building had two altars and the Sanctuary apse projecting to the east. The ancillary buildings included the tripartite baptistery, the phiale, the prothesis and the diakonikon that were arranged around a tomb of the Hellenistic times (323 – 30 BC), which was incorporated into the nucleus of the Christian buildings after the erection of the chapel.