As every year on November 11, we will be closed to honor the holy patron saint of our city.
Agios Minas is the patron saint of Heraklion and its metropolitan church is located in the center of the old city within the walls. According to legend, on Easter day, April 18, 1826, the saint appeared with great pomp on the horse and saved the Christians from the knife of the Ottoman vazivuzuks who had been ordered to slaughter them.
Agios Minas lived at the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th AD. century. He was a soldier in Egypt and later became a monk in Phrygia. He was imprisoned and tortured for his faith and was eventually martyred by Diocletian. His sacred bones were transported to Egypt and buried “where the camels stop.” His tomb is now located about 40 kilometers southwest of Alexandria and was an important place of pilgrimage until the 10th century.
