History of Rhodes Metropolis

The name of Rhodes is mentioned in the New Testament (Acts, 1), on the return of Paul to Jerusalem, during the third apostolic tour. Paul is considered to be the founder of the Church of Rhodes, while according to the tradition of Rhodes, the travelling companion of the Apostle of the Gentiles, Apostle Silas, also preached and performed miracles here.

It is not known when Rhodes first became a Bishopry. According to tradition, the first Bishop was Prochoros in the first century. In the second century, Bishop Eufranor was mentioned and in the second half of the third century, in the martyrdom of the Holy Martyrs Clement (Klimis) and Agathangelos, Bishop Fotinos. Bishop Eufrosynos took part in the First Ecumenical Synod.

History of the Cathedral

The building complex of the Cathedral of the Annunciation of the Virgin in Eleftherias Square in Rhodes is a prominent monument of Italian neoeclecticism and a modern morphological rendering of the now destroyed Medieval Convent Church of the Order of the Knights of St John, which was located in the western fortified part of Kollakion and was completely destroyed after a gunpowder explosion in 1856.

In 1924, the National Association of Franciscan Missionaries commissioned the Italian architect Florestano di Fausto to design the reconstruction of the Catholic Church of Saint John (San Giovanni) in a different location from that of the original church. Di Fausto relied mainly on the drawings by the explorers Bernard Eugene Antoine Rottiers of 1828 and Eugene Flandin of 1853.

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