Church of Saint Nicholas – Nymfaio
In stone-built Nymfaio, the Church of Saint Nicholas, the village’s patron saint, has stood on the same site since 1385—the year the settlement itself was founded. For centuries, much of its history was lost when the archives of the Metropolis of Kastoria were destroyed, yet surviving evidence testifies to its continuous role as a spiritual landmark for the community.
In 1867, Michas Efendis Tsirlis built a second church on the same foundations, which stood its ground for eighty years until it was burned in 1947. Four years later, in 1951, the Union of Athens Daily Newspaper Editors erected a third church, preserving parts of the original stone reliefs. The church you see today is the fourth in succession. Built from scratch in 2000 thanks to a donation from Nikolaos I. Sossidis and inaugurated in 2002 by Archbishop Christodoulos, it follows the architectural style of a three-aisled timber-roofed basilica. It is both a valuable post-Byzantine monument and a symbol of faith, perseverance, and rebirth—a microcosm of Nymfaio’s own history, continually rising from its ashes.
