Church of the Transfiguration of the Saviour

“We are not building a church for these miserable and unfortunate years but for the vision of a new era, to tell our people that the suffering will pass and that days will come when the settlement of Kalamaria will be an example to all. And then this church will be a worthy monument of its progress.” With these prophetic words, the painter who decorated the majestic church of the Transfiguration of the Saviour (Metamorfosis tou Sotiros) justified the construction of an imposing church in a community of impoverished refugees living in miserable shacks. The construction began in 1930 with a donation by Christos Stamatopoulos and Eleni Stamatopoulos-Komitopoulos. The engineer D. Fyllizis also worked for free. The sculptor Evangelos Kesidis created the bust of Christos Stamatopoulos still on site. The church was dedicated to the Transfiguration of the Saviour in memory of the church of the same name abandoned by Pontic Greeks in Kars. The church bell came from the church in Kars and functioned as a link between the refugees’ old and new homeland. The courtyard is adorned with busts and statues of members of the clergy. The classicising and realistic figure of the Metropolitan of Trebizond and Archbishop Chrysanthos Filippidis is the work of the sculptor Efthymios Kalevras, who also made the bronze statue of the Metropolitan Bishop Germanos Karavangelis. This work aims to highlight his venerable character and mission. Kalevras also created the bust of the first vicar, Nicholaos Economides, from Pontus.