Andreou, A. and K. Kasvikis. The "Difficult" Past of a Town: The Resonant Silences and Suppressed Memories of Florina's Cultural Heritage // MuseumEdu (6). Autumn 2018. p. 154 - 155. Архивиран от оригинала на 2020-09-26. A typical example of his actions was the 1971 demolition of the St. Panteleimon cathedral, built in 1870, and the immediate foundation of a new church in its place, expunged of all the “non–Greek” remnants in the architecture and paintings of the previous one. According to the anniversary edition of Florina’s diocese (Pichos 1993: 23, 26), Athanasios Roukalis, an older priest of that church stated: "It weighed gravely upon me that the cathedral, internally and externally, had a Slavic architectural planning and design. It had three domes in the Slavic style. All the windows were also of a Slavic form. In the interior of the church, the paintings of the iconastasis were written with Slavic letters and the Greek were written on top of them. In many cases, the Greek letters were worn off or faded and the Slavic ones became visible again. I couldn’t accept that." After removing all the “offending” church icons and modifying the altar and the windows, they finally demolished the whole church. Under the pretext, that they were public safety hazards, several churches in the wider area were torn down, the Cathedral of Florina included. In many cases the “threat” was so immense that they were forced to use tanks to demolish the buildings, as happened in the case of the St. Konstantinos and Helen’s Church in Amyntaion, another town in the Florina district. (на английски)
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Andreou, A. and K. Kasvikis. The "Difficult" Past of a Town: The Resonant Silences and Suppressed Memories of Florina's Cultural Heritage // MuseumEdu (6). Autumn 2018. p. 154 - 155. Архивиран от оригинала на 2020-09-26. A typical example of his actions was the 1971 demolition of the St. Panteleimon cathedral, built in 1870, and the immediate foundation of a new church in its place, expunged of all the “non–Greek” remnants in the architecture and paintings of the previous one. According to the anniversary edition of Florina’s diocese (Pichos 1993: 23, 26), Athanasios Roukalis, an older priest of that church stated: "It weighed gravely upon me that the cathedral, internally and externally, had a Slavic architectural planning and design. It had three domes in the Slavic style. All the windows were also of a Slavic form. In the interior of the church, the paintings of the iconastasis were written with Slavic letters and the Greek were written on top of them. In many cases, the Greek letters were worn off or faded and the Slavic ones became visible again. I couldn’t accept that." After removing all the “offending” church icons and modifying the altar and the windows, they finally demolished the whole church. Under the pretext, that they were public safety hazards, several churches in the wider area were torn down, the Cathedral of Florina included. In many cases the “threat” was so immense that they were forced to use tanks to demolish the buildings, as happened in the case of the St. Konstantinos and Helen’s Church in Amyntaion, another town in the Florina district. (на английски)
