StMarinaChurch

This white church by the water is dedicated to Saint Marina. It stands on the south shore of Porto Rafti bay, with the sea right behind it. Look at the marble plaque beside the door. It tells you that the foundations were laid on the twentieth of June 1949, and that the church was completed on the twenty-second of April 1951. It also names the two priests and the members of the church committee who saw the work through.

So the building is young. The name is older. The Metropolis of Mesogaia records that an earlier church of Saint Marina on this coast stood right by the sea, and that, like other seaside churches of the bay, it lay open to raiders from the sea. Saint Marina is honoured in the Orthodox Church as a great martyr, and her feast falls on the seventeenth of July. Then look out across the water to the islands of the bay.