The island of Tinos in The Cyclades

Tinos is recommended for those people who want to visit an island in The Cyclades that has more visitors from the rest of Greece than non-Greek visitors. Tinos is the most important Orthodox centre of worship in Greece but is also an important Catholic centre too, due to the Venetians holding out against the Turks until 1715, a lot longer than the rest of Greece. This mixture of religions is rare in Greece and gives the island a character.

The main reason for the influx of Greek visitors is the church at the top of the hill in Tinos Town. The Panayia Evangelistra was built on the spot where an amazing icon was found in 1822 by a local nun, Ayia Pelayia. The nun is now the ‘patron saint’ of Tinos. The timing couldn’t have been better as the Greek War of Independence had only started the previous year and the ‘chance’ discovery served to reinforce the relationship between the Greek Orthodox Church and the cause of Greek independence from Turkey.

In the church today, visitors can still pay homage to the icon, even though it’s well hidden beneath a layer of jewels and other gifts. Some pilgrims ascend the plush, red-carpeted stairs to the church on their knees, symbolising the veneration the icon can generate in some believers. In the crypt, there’s a mausoleum to the sailors who were killed when the Greek cruiser, Elli, was torpedoed by an Italian submarine when the ship was at anchor off Tinos in 1940.

There’s another memorial to this ship on the waterfront about three hundred yards to the east of the ferry terminal. The tragedy was that the Elli was taking part in the celebrations of the Feast of the Dormition when she was torpedoed and no one was on lookout. Greece was still at peace with the Fascist states of Northern Europe.

Tinos is renowned throughout Greece for the excellence of their craftsmen in producing marble ornamentation and this is particularly evident in the town of Pyrgos with its School of Fine Arts and Museum of Marble Crafts. Tinos is also famous for its dovecotes - there’s even a dovecote trail to follow if you hire a car. I’d heard a village called Tarambados had a great selection of dovecotes, so I caught the bus to the interior and got off at the village.

There was no one around, but I saw at least five dovecotes in the mid-distance and sure enough there were soon some rustic signs, which took me by streams, through fields, and along walls. The fields were full of cabbage and cauliflower. The hedges and low trees were full of the sounds of insects, especially bees who were attracted by the copious and colourful wild flowers. The dovecotes were bigger than the houses in the village and were attractively decorated with intricate triangles, circles, and honeycomb patterns.

When the Fourth Crusade lurched violently out of control and sacked and captured Constantinople in 1204, instead of heading to the Holy Land, the ramifications for Tinos were enormous. The island was no longer part of the Byzantine Empire and instead was ruled by a private Venetian citizen named Andrea Ghisi, who along with his brother Jeremiah, captured the island in 1207. One of their first moves was to erect fortifications on the Exobourgo Mountain, making it a stronghold.

The heirs of the Ghisi family held the island until 1390 when the last member of the family bequeathed Tinos to Venice. The Venetians built strong fortifications and introduced Catholic immigrants to the island. The Ottoman Empire took the island in 1715, but their rule lasted only until 1821 when Tinos enthusiastically joined the Greek War of Independence. Looking out from the dovecotes towards Exobourgo, most of the villages I saw were Catholic as well as almost all the churches.

Tinos was the only island of the Cyclades that had an entire temple dedicated to Poseidon, the god of sea, and his wife the sea nymph Amphitrite. The ruins of this temple can be seen at Kionia near Tinos Town. The exact date of this temple's construction is unknown, but archaeologists believe that it dates from approximately the 4th century BCE. Due to this temple, Tinos became an important religious centre and many people would first come here to clean and purify themselves before going to the sacred island of Delos.

In January and February, religious ceremonies known as Poseidonia were celebrated to honour the god. In the 3rd century BCE, the temple was reconstructed and became an inviolable asylum for people who were persecuted. The architecture was Doric, the temple was made of local marble, and had some representations of the Poseidon's symbols, such as dolphins and the trident.