The Church of the Forty Martyrs (Santi Quaranta)

On the hill above Saranda, affording a magnificent panorama, is located the extraordinary Church of the Forty Martyrs. The hill has views down over the bay of Saranda and along the Ksamili peninsula to Butrint, and there are equally breathtaking views inland to Phoenicê and the mountains range beyond.

The church was built in late antiquity, in the late 5th or early 6th century, probably by a Holy Man, and designed to be an important place of pilgrimage. The site was first investigated in the 1920s by the Italian Archaeological Mission; sadly, it was bombed by Allied or German forces during the Second World War, and probably dynamited for use as an Albanian military area in the late 1950s, hence only a fraction of the monument now remains.

The Church of the Forty Martyrs was a large 40-metre long church with an extraordinary ground plan: a large eastern apse and three wide apsidal bays opening off the nave on each side. Great round-headed windows, five to each bay, lit the interior. This was a sophisticated building, roofed with a series of domes and semi-domes. On the north and west-facing exterior walls of the basilica still survives the votive inscriptions fashioned of red tiles set into the masonry, recording the names of founding benefactors – both male and female – who contributed to the cost of the construction.

In a later phase an outer narthex was added, designed to be prominent to seafarers passing through the Ionian Sea north of Corfu and, specifically, to those in Saranda below. Further, the interior walls were redecorated throughout. In particular, within the multi-chambered subterranean chapels of the crypt recent conservation has revealed elaborate painted programmes, including an episode in which Christ pulls at the beard of a nimbed saint. This second phase of decoration probably belongs to the later 9th or 10th centuries.

The main relic chambers, reached by narrow passages, lay on the south side at the end of a long vaulted hall. Traces of a line of saints and a painted cross were discovered around the two fenestellae beyond which the relics were located. A modest bath-house to the north was probably where pilgrims would have bathed before visiting the relics.

The unusual plan of the basilica is paralleled in late antique multi-apsed triclinia, such as the banqueting hall of the Palace of Lausos in Constantinople, and some related features are found in early Christian martyria. However, as a church this building is unique, designed to enshrine and promote the relics of widely venerated saints. In the age of Justinian in the 6th century it must have been one of the most visually striking pilgrimage basilicas in the central Mediterranean.

Entry to the church can only be gained by contacting the Institute of Monuments either in Saranda or Tirana.

 

• The region and beyond
• Saranda
• Church of the Forty Martyrs
• QTVR: View from Forty Martyrs
• Phoenicê
• Mesopotam
• QTVR: Mesopotam
• Gjirokastra
• QTVR: Zekate House
• The Gjirokastra Conservation and Development Office

The martyrdom of the forty saints In 320 AD the emperor Licinius is said to have issued an order that all Christians in the East were to repudiate their religion or be put to death.
In Sebastea in Armenia (now Sivas in modern Turkey), among those who refused to give up their faith were 40 soldiers of the Twelfth ‘Thunderstruck’ Legion.
The soldiers were stripped and herded into a frozen pond and taunted by the sight of warm baths and fires. After a day most of the soldiers had died; those who survived were put to death.
Only one soldier recanted, but his place was taken by one of the guards who had been converted by the bravery displayed by the martyrs.
The cult of the 40 saints was popular in the early Byzantine period, and their remains are said to have been found in Constantinople and have been taken to Emperor Justinian as a miraculous healing agent.