Church of the Virgin Mary of Foreigners, Corfu

The Church of the Virgin Mary of Foreigners (Faneromeni (Virgin of Foreigners)) or the Church of the Mother of God Xenon (Panagia ton Xenon) is a church of the 17th century in the center of the city of Corfu.

During the Turkish occupation, the inhabitants of Epirus in the 16th and early 17th centuries migrated en masse to Kerkyra, this was also facilitated by the failure of various revolutionary movements and brutal Islamism . Epirus had a hard time assimilating on the island. Having a large amount of national and religious fanaticism , they unite and felt the need to have their own religious space. Therefore, the unassimilated Epiriotes were "strangers" or "foreigners" to the local residents, which is why the church they founded and used is called the Church of Our Lady of Foreigners to this day.

The site for the temple was given by N. Vervitiotis as a legacy of the daughter Theodorella Vervitiotis, on the condition that a temple should be built there, in which her and her parents' names are always mentioned. The temple was built by the priest Nicodemus of Epirus for refugees from Epirus in 1689 and became operational the following year. The church was later bequeathed to 22 or 25 people who helped to build it with orders to receive as brethren "those who are foreign Christians from parts of the earth", hence it was also called "Foreigners". At the same time, these "foreigners" also received the right to be buried in the temple.

The temple is built in the style of a basilica with three narthexes and is distinguished by an exquisite ceiling by N. Kutuzi. Its internal dimensions are not perfectly symmetrical, the long side of the temple is 16.16 meters, the eastern wall is 9.80 meters, the western wall is 9.40 meters. The width of the narthex of the temple decreases from west to east from 1.26 meters to 0.90 meters. In general, the temple is 9.39 m high and oriented from east to west, with simple masonry and the thickness of the walls of the building is 0.69 meters. The entire building is covered with a triangular wooden roof with tiles.

The 5.45-meter-long gilded iconostasis in Baroque style is decorated with wood carvings, the main element of which is a grape vine. The iconostasis was restored in 1875 by craftsmen from Naples. There is also a rare icon "Riza Lessay" (1814) by the artist M. Mantsavinos. The pulpit of the church is decorated with an image of Jesus Christ driving the merchants out of the temple, which is rare for pulpits.

The icons also depict nineteen bishops of the Christian Church (ten Eastern and nine Western), which is unique to the Orthodox Churches: Leontius of Caesarea, Augustine, Anthony, Ambrose, Athanasius the Great, Basil the Great, Damasius I, John of Damascus, John Chrysostom, Gregory of Neocaesaria, Gregory the Theologian, Cyril of Alexandria, Dionysius the Areopagite, Celestine I, Jerome, Ivan IV, Gregory I, Leo I. Each of them holds in his handsa scroll with a statement about the Holy Spirit.