Agios Minas Cathedral

Agios Minas Cathedral tickets: which one to buy

Entry is free with a donation box, and there is no ticket for any part of the building. Heraklion walking tours include the cathedral and cost a moderate amount, usually adding the Venetian loggia, the Morosini fountain and the harbour fortress. The cathedral stands on its own square in the middle of the old town, five minutes from the archaeological museum, so nothing needs planning.

The small church of the same name beside it, built in 1735 and known locally as the little Agios Minas, is also free and is the older and more atmospheric of the two. Candles are sold inside. The cathedral closes to visitors during services, which are frequent, and the feast of St Menas on 11 November is a public holiday in Heraklion. The cathedral office arranges access to the little church when it is locked, and a caretaker usually opens it on request.

Visiting Agios Minas Cathedral: what to see

Athanasios Moussis designed the cathedral and the foundation stone was laid in 1862, during Ottoman rule; the Cretan revolt of 1866 stopped the work, which resumed in 1883 and finished in 1895. It is one of the largest churches in Greece, 43 metres long, cruciform with a high central dome and two bell towers, and it seats several thousand. The interior is Orthodox in the nineteenth-century Russian-influenced manner, with a marble iconostasis, wall paintings and icons;

the most important of them, by the sixteenth-century Cretan painter Michael Damaskinos, hang in the little church next door, which served as the cathedral before this one was finished. Menas, a soldier martyred in Egypt around 309, is the patron of the city and is credited with appearing on horseback to stop Ottoman troops massacring the congregation on Easter night in 1826. The cathedral's bells were cast in Russia and given by Russian donors, and the interior murals were painted over several decades in the twentieth century.

Agios Minas Cathedral opening hours and the best time to go

Open daily from early morning to evening with a break in the middle of the day in summer, and services in the morning and evening. Crete is hot from June to September and the stone interior is cool. The square outside has cafes on two sides and is a meeting place at all hours. Dress modestly, with shoulders and knees covered. Photography inside is discouraged during services. Allow twenty minutes for both churches.

The archaeological museum with the Minoan collections is five minutes away and needs two hours, and the Venetian walls with the tomb of Nikos Kazantzakis are a twenty-minute walk. Good Friday and Easter are the great services in Heraklion and the square fills with the congregation and the epitaphios procession. Heraklion's old town is compact and the walk from the port to the cathedral takes fifteen minutes past the Venetian walls.