Holy Church of Saint Nicholas Rangavas

The Church of Saint Nicholas Rangavas stands out for its irregular, patchwork masonry of stone and tile, built into the sloping hillside of the Plaka district. This eleventh-century Byzantine structure belonged to the powerful Rangavas family, who once produced an emperor of the Byzantine Empire. During the Greek War of Independence in eighteen twenty-one, the church bells were the first to ring out across Athens when the city was liberated from Ottoman rule, marking the end of centuries of silence for Christian bells.