The Ecclesiologist Volume 7 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: DISCOVERY OF AN EARLY CHRISTIAN CHURCH AT ATHENS. [We have been favoured with the following extract of a letter from Athens (dated June 8th, 1849) containing an account of the discovery on a small island in the Ilissus, of an ancient temple subsequently converted into a church. A curious topographical description of Athens and its environs, existing in a Manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Vienna Library, and lately published by Dr. Ross, leaves no room to doubt that it is identical with the temple of Juno, subsequently converted into a church of the Blessed Virgin, the position of which, minutely described by the anonymous author, precisely corresponds with that of the ruin lately exhumed.] " The attention of the public has been drawn of late to some ruins recently discovered on the little island in the llissus, above the Calirrhoe, just on the spot where Leake supposes the Eleusinium stood. About one half of this little island, towards the north-east is occupied by a garden, surrounded by a mud wall. The owner, wishing to extend his possession, began to dig on the southerly side of his wall, and immediately came upon traces of ancient ruins, and further investigation shows that they are the remains of a Christian church of considerable size (about 140 feet long). The iepov fli/na is distinctly marked out, and the pavement is of Mosaic. The inner side of the walls seems to have been completely faced with polished thin slabs of Hymettus marble; and from this and other points of resemblance with the Christian church within the Erectheium, it is supposed that this church is of the same period, i. e., of the ninth century. Just in front of the iepov fttjfw, as if placed there for a step, there is a large slab of Pentelic marble, showing traces of an ancient inscription, al...