Ecclesiastical Museum
The Church of the Holy Trinity

Anyhow, the French traveler Tournefort, who visited the island in the 1700s and listed the existing monasteries, does not refer to The Holy Trinity as a monastery or cloister, but simply as a church. He calls it "Our Lady of the Epiphany" and situates it 4 km. from Chora (Zephyria).
 
In the beginning of the 19^th century large groups settled for the first time in Adamas. First it was the former inhabitants of Old Chora, who moved away presumably because of epidemic diseases and later Cretan refugees from the Turkish rule of their island. These went on to buy the church, which at that time was in private hands.
 
The price mentioned in the deed is indeed very low supposedly indicating that the church at that time was abandoned and more or less in ruins.

Many offerings and donations of money, land, objects and artifacts were made and the church was restored and started functioning to cover the religious needs of the inhabitants.

At the same time iconostases, icons and other ecclesiastical artifacts, which had been saved from the abandoned churches of Old Chora, were transferred to The Holy Trinity to decorate it. 
 
The ground had a different shape in earlier times. Because of a fill-up of alluvium and silt the sea is today further away whilst it earlier spread more inland and almost reached the steps of the church.
 
That maybe why it was called Our Lady of the Harbor or Our Lady of Adamas. It was also called Our Lady of the Epiphany as the people celebrated there, next to the waters, the feast of the Epiphany.

The name was so influential that the entire area around the harbor came to be known as Our Lady (I Panayia) by the locals right up to the end of the 20^th Century. Only within the last few years has the name Adamas taken hold. It is, however, unknown when the church was renamed The Holy Trinity.
 
Following the restoration and renewed functioning of the church around 1840 people began to celebrate it 50 days after Easter at the so-called Holy Trinity Festival.

The Festival 

At that time a pan-Melian festival was held - the only one on the island to be celebrated in the morning. After the sermon all homes were opened to visitors and rich treats were offered. Later people gathered in the churchyard where they played music and danced all day.
 
In the afternoon the embarked their sailing boats and went all the way to the entrance of the harbor. The festival has lasted until our days but now takes place in the evening after Vesper.

The Architecture
 
The church has an unusual architectural structure - a triple-aisled, tiled, basilica roof with an arched dome.
 
A cross-section of the roof as viewed from the outside gives the impression of a small church, while seen from the inside the arches in fact rise to a high and very sharp peak.
 
Of the original bell-tower only the lower part has been preserved, the upper part was added in the 1950s.
 
The mosaics on the stairs and the roof are from the beginning of the 20^th Century and the work of a local, amateur craftsman.
 
Recently the church has been further enriched by donations of objects and artifacts from other churches and private collections and turned into an ecclesiastical museum.


Ecclesiastical Museum
Open daily 9:15-13:15 & 18:15-22:15
Admittance is free
 
tel. (+30 22870) 23956
Adamas, Milos