Church of Agioi Theodoroi (Old Metropolis of Serres)

At the centre of the old city is the most important Byzantine monument of Serres, the church of Agioi Theodoroi, known also as the Old Metropolis, since it functioned as a metropolitan church from the Byzantine period to modern times.

It dates from the 11th century and is built probably over an older church, from the Early Christian period. The first information about the monument we draw from a lead seal of the 12th century, while in the 14th century the Byzantine scholar Theodoros Pediasimos visited the area and described the church. In 1849 the monument suffered serious damages from a fire, and the same happened in 1913 when the Bulgarians torched the city. During the years 1928-1935 restoration works were carried out and today, after the more recent efforts to restore it, it functions as a pilgrimage church.

It belongs to the type of three-aisled, wooden-roofed basilica, with a narthex on the west and galleries. The aisles are divided at the interior with colonnades and the middle one is larger, almost double the size of the others with an elevated clerestory. On the east only the central apse protrudes with the three-light window, while at its interior at the conch there survive remains from the synthronon. In the 12th – 13th century the beam was covered with a barrel-vault and the parabemata with small domes. During the years 1602-1603 the narthex was reconstructed and in 1725, when Stephanos was the metropolitan, they reconstructed the southern wall. The conch of the bema was decorated by the mosaic representation of the Communion of the Apostles, from which only the figure of Apostle Pauyl survives today, which is exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of the city.