Restoration efforts are proceeding at the Church of Panagia Acheiropoietos, with the Ministry of Culture, through the Thessaloniki Antiquities Department, undertaking a comprehensive project to enhance the historic monument.
The project aims to improve accessibility, reshape and highlight the surrounding area, restore the stone wall enclosing the church, and replace most of the railings to ensure unobstructed views.
Funded by the Ministry of Culture with €500,000 from the Recovery Fund, the project will focus on improving access to the monument, enhancing the surrounding area, and upgrading energy efficiency and fire safety systems.
The goal is for the monument to be fully restored and prominently showcased by early 2026.
“The Church of Panagia Acheiropoietos owes its name to the icon of the Virgin Mary, Deesis, which, according to tradition, was not painted by human hands. This name appears in a golden bull issued by Michael VIII Palaeologus,” said Culture Minister Lina Mendoni. “The church is an outstanding architectural work from the late 5th century and a major Byzantine artistic monument of Thessaloniki."
She also emphasized that the mosaics, decorations, and portable icons of the church form a treasure trove of Byzantine art. In 1988, UNESCO included the city’s early Christian and Byzantine monuments in the World Heritage List, including the Church of Panagia Acheiropoietos.
The current structure of the Acheiropoietos Church represents a prime example of a pre-Byzantine wooden-roofed basilica in the Hellenistic style, with a narthex and upper floor.
Due to its symmetrical architecture, the uniformity of its sculptural decoration, and the naturalistic style of its preserved mosaics, the church is considered one of the best-preserved architectural compositions from late antiquity in Thessaloniki.
Recent studies suggest that the church was initially built in the late 5th or early 6th century without an upper floor.
Additions such as the upper floor, an unpreserved skylight, and extensive annexes were made in the mid-7th century. Further modifications to the superstructure were carried out in the early 9th century. In the early 13th century, a monumental fresco of the Forty Martyrs was added to the south aisle. Subsequent changes, following the church’s conversion into an Islamic place of worship in 1430, altered its original form, which was finally restored during the period 1909-1914.
The church occupies an entire city block in the heart of Thessaloniki.
The surrounding space is enclosed by a stone wall, built primarily during the interwar period (1920-1940) and repaired in the northeast corner after World War II.
The pillars from the second post-war period (1945-1949) show signs of local structural disarray, with one pillar in the southern section of the wall already having collapsed.