Chiesa dei Greci

Dedicated in the fourteenth century as Santa Maria de Angelis, the Chiesa dei Greci preserves a vivid record of Barletta's Greek-Orthodox community. Its four-register iconostasis, about ten metres high, and a sixteenth-century maiolica pavement distinguish this church within the old town.

Why it matters

The church recalls the Greek-speaking communities that settled and worshipped in Barletta. A group of Coroni from the Peloponnese adopted the building in the sixteenth century and celebrated the Byzantine rite there. Changes of rite and periods of abandonment did not erase the church's distinctive artistic and devotional character.

What to notice

The contrast between the simple exterior and the painted wooden iconostasis is immediate. The screen rises through four registers and is approximately ten metres high and six metres wide. Its first register includes the icons of Christ Pantocrator and the Virgin Hodegetria, attributed to a leading Cretan painter of the sixteenth century. A Deesis composition and royal doors structure the screen. The sixteenth-century maiolica floor is made of glazed tiles fired in Neapolitan workshops.

Context and history

The church's documented history begins in 1398, when a chapel named Santa Maria de Angelis and an adjoining hospital for the poor stood on the site. In the sixteenth century, Greek refugees from Coroni took over the building and established Greek-Orthodox worship. After the plague of 1656, the church passed to Catholic use in 1660; it returned to the Greek community in 1789 and changed hands again in 1842. Orthodox liturgy resumed in later periods. The church is now part of Barletta's municipal heritage network.