Churches and Monasteries

SS Savior Church

Discesa Fosso, 15, 88900 Crotone KR
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Architecture

The building has a facade characterized by a round-arched portal, framed by an ornate lintel above which an irregular gable features a blind rose window.

The interior has a single rectangular hall covered by a ceiling whose wooden trusses, were brought to light during the latest work carried out. The area reserved for the clergy, elevated from the rest of the nave, accommodates the high altar made of polychrome marble on which the date (1880) and the name of the patron, said parish priest Bonaventura Messina, can be read.

Dating from 1883, with the same commission, are another altar and the baptismal font, both placed on the left side of the nave.

Today the church has been granted for use by the Romanian Orthodox Diocese.

Origins

The small church has the long left side built on the city wall.

This important detail shows that the religious building, while retaining the same title, is not the one to which, in the 16th century, Bishop Lopez, exercising the distribution of the territories of each parish, expanded the boundaries.

The first parish church, in fact, had existed since the 16th century and had gradually expanded because it had incorporated the boundaries of two other neighboring parishes, “S. Nicola dei Greci” and ” S. Domenica.”

The first was so named because the Greek Byzantine rite was celebrated there; the second parish was located more or less in the area now occupied by St. Joseph’s Church.

In addition, the space it currently occupies, abutting the fortifications, could in no case be occupied at least until the early 19th century, as it was subject to military servitude.

This is fully corroborated by the plan of the city of Crotone drawn in 1778 by Michele Cristiani, which for the abundance of detail highlights that the area where the church of SS. Salvatore stands today was cleared.

From what has been reported, it can be inferred that the parish was located elsewhere and that the present structure is a building no earlier than the 19th century.

Indeed, historian Pesavento writes that the 1783 earthquake made the church almost a ruin so much so that it was preferred to transfer the care of souls to the church of St. Joseph. It was then Bishop Ludovico Ludovici (1792- 1797) who reopened it for worship after reviving it from the foundations.