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Modern Description: This church on the saddle between Pnyx hill and Muses hill, sitting on the N bastion of a key gate of the Diateichisma wall, allegedly dates to the 9th century, and has some battered 18th c. wall-paintings. The exterior, however, is a 1950s fantasy by architect Dimitris Pikionis, a mosaic of marble remnants and brick that grafts neo-Byzantine charm onto an island farmhouse. The official story on the name harks back to an Ottoman gunner struck by lightning as he took aim with his bombard (loumbarda) at a group of church-goers. This is in turn conflated with the lightning strike that blew off the roof of the (until then intact) Propylaea (another ammunition storehouse as well as the governor's palace) around 1645, and with the location of the Venetian artillery batteries that shelled the Acropolis, successfully, in 1687. The church is now popular for weddings and baptisms. A snack-bar there, designed to complement the srrounding pinewoods, has been closed for years due to various bureaucratic battles.
[Judith Binder: Haghios Dimitrios Loumbardiaris on the saddle between the Pnyx and Philopappos hills (Plan 1 theta -1, no. 112): Biris, K. 1966, 44-45 no. 127; Kron, U. 1979, 49, 61-62 with note 65]
Wikidata ID: Q104473775
Trismegistos Geo: 364

Info: ToposText editors

(JBK)

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