Saint Constantin, see 53 photos

The metropolitan church of Saint Constantine and Helen was built by the architect Kaftantzoglou, painted by Anastasios Loukidis and founded in 1905 by Queen Olga. Inside it we find two basilicas, a Constantine with arcades and a Justinian without arcades.
It is said that the church was a simple church in the district of Gerani. This was the name of the area between Koumoundourou Square, Piraeus and Agios Konstantinos.
Opposite Saint Constantine is the National Theater, a work of German architect Ernestos Schiller, inspired by the Renaissance. The theater began to be built as a basilica from 1891. Delivered in 1900, closed in 1908, and reopened as National Theater in 1932, under Education Minister George Papandreou and Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos.

Saint Constantin 1905

Boulevard Agiou Konstantinou

Place Agiou Konstantinou

Acacia speaking with the saint

Flowers of acacia

Detail of St Constantin

Detail of St Constantin

Flag of St Constantin

Place of St Constantin

Boulevard Agiou Konstantinou

Pavement of Boulevard Agiou Konstantinou

Banks made of marble

Place Agiou Konstantinou Clear Blue Sky near by

Place infront St Constantin

Banks of marble

Interior of St Constantin

Detail inside the church St Constantin

Detail inside church St Constantin

Detail inside St Constantin

Detail inside Saint Constantin

Side door of St Constantin

Directions to Piraeus Port - Omonoia Place

Detail of St Constantin

Part of St Constantin

Donators of St Constantin

Donators of St Constantin

Renovation made by Greek State & EEC

Detail of St Constantin

Front Door of St Constantin

The interior of St Constantin

Detail of the interior of St Constantin

Detail of St Constantin

Boulevard of Agiou Konstantinou

St Constantin

Boulevard of Agiou Konstantinou

Lucabettus from Agiou Konstantinou street

Place of Agiou Konstantinou

Directions from Agiou Konstantinou to Lamia - Corinthos

SAINT CONSTANTINOS OMONIA
https://beneas13.blogspot.com/2016/07/blog-post_2.html.

The church of Saints Constantine and Helen was built on the initiative of the Municipality of Athens to commemorate the birth of Constantine's successor, son of the royal couple George and Olga in 1868.
The study for the construction of the church was commissioned by the Athens City Council to one of the most prominent architects of the time, Lysandro Kaftantzoglou, in 1870, and the foundation stone was laid the following year.
However, the inauguration took many years and was made in 1905 by Queen Olga, whose sponsorship was necessary to complete the work.
The temple was built at a time when small Athens was slowly trying to transform itself into a European city with neoclassicism being a dominant architectural idiom at a time when the Great Idea of ​​expanding Greece to areas with Greek populations dominated the political field. 

The imposing church with an area of ​​more than 1,000 square meters, and total height from the floor to the top of the dome 32 meters, typologically belongs to the three-aisled basilica with transverse aisle and dome and morphologically to a literal eclecticism with classical features.
The most imposing element of St. Constantine is its facade, shaped with elements of neoclassical and Renaissance rhythmic origin.
The church has a tripartite arrangement consisting of a platform, a marble-lined intermediate zone and an upper zone.
An interesting element is the monumental entrance in the form of a propylon with columns, Corinthian semi-columns and gable coronation, and it is surrounded by two octagonal tower blocks.
The broad dome is covered with copper sheets. The temple is frescoed on the inside, and frescoes by Anastasios Loukidis (he has also painted the Zoodochos Pigi Temple in Athens), which worked with assistants Fotis Kontoglou and Dimitrios Dimas, are preserved.
Saint Constantine suffered significant damage from the earthquakes of 1981 and 1999, which were exacerbated by the aging and natural deterioration of building materials.
The main problem was what caused the second earthquake. He hit a pretty serious part of his Sanctuary.
Lysandros Kaftantzoglou, the architect who signs the imposing temple, was born in 1811 in the Turkish-occupied Thessaloniki.
He was the grandson of the wealthy merchant Ioannis Gouta Kaftantzoglou, who had relations with the Patriarchate and the Portal, and a son of Mercurius Kaftantzoglou.
His family fled to Marseille to escape the Revolution of 1821.
Lysander, after many years of Architecture studies in Rome and France, was called in 1844 by the Greek government to assume the management of the School of Arts, which was the first form of the current National Technical University of Athens.
Until 1862, when he resigned, he was instrumental in the development of the Foundation. After all, the conception and organization of the construction of the Polytechnic building on Patision Street were made on his own plans.
Other important works of Kaftantzoglou in Athens are Arsakeio, the church of Agia Irini, the church of Aghios Dionysios of the Catholics, and Agios Andreas of Patras.
He died on October 5, 1885, without seeing the completion of his plan to Saint Constantine, the penultimate work of his maturity, with several changes to the original design which are found in the shape and height of the dome, the way of housing and the way of splitting the narthex from the aprons but also in the form of a propylon.