Corfu, Greece — Catholic Pilgrimage Guide

In the Campiello quarter of Corfu's old town, under a red-domed bell tower that rises above every other roof in the Ionian Islands, a double sarcophagus of wood and silver stands upright beside the iconostasis. Inside lies the body of a Cypriot shepherd who became a bishop, confounded the Arians at the Council of Nicaea, and was found incorrupt three centuries after his burial — Saint Spyridon the Wonderworker, carried out of Constantinople before the city fell and received on this island as its own. st spyridon shrine

Corfu lies at the northern end of the Ionian Islands, off the north-west coast of Greece and an hour by ferry from the mainland at Igoumenitsa. Its old town, Venetian in its fortifications and its arcades, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. unesco

The church that holds the relics is Greek Orthodox, administered by the Metropolis of Kerkyra, Paxoi and the Diapontian Islands. Saint Spyridon died in 348, six centuries before East and West divided, and the Catholic Church honours him as the Orthodox do. A Catholic pilgrim comes here to pray before the relics of a bishop of the undivided Church, in a church that is not his own and where he is welcome; Corfu's Catholics have their own cathedral five minutes' walk away, and a chapel of Saint Spyridon inside it. metropolis of corfu+1

📜 History & Spiritual Significance

Spyridon was born about 270 in the village of Askeia, in Cyprus, and kept sheep for his living. He married, had a daughter named Irene, and after his wife's death gave himself to the monastic life; the island's Christians afterwards made him Bishop of Trimythous. He sat among the fathers of the First Council of Nicaea in 325, where, answering a philosopher who argued for Arius, he took up a potsherd and showed in one object the three things of which it was made — fire rose from it, water ran out of it, and clay was left in his hand. He was called the Wonderworker in his lifetime for healings and deliverances granted through his prayers, and he died on 12 December 348. st spyridon, wheeling+1

He was buried at Trimythous, and his body was found undecayed when the grave was opened. Arab raids on Cyprus late in the seventh century drove the relics to Constantinople, where they were honoured for the better part of eight hundred years. In 1456, three years after the city fell to the Turks, the priest George Kalohairetis brought them to Corfu together with the relics of Saint Theodora Augusta, hidden, as the island tells the story, in sacks of straw and carried across Greece by mule. john sanidopoulos+2

For more than a century the relics moved from church to church in the growing town — to the cathedral of the Archangel Michael, to a Voulgaris family chapel at San Rocco, into the Old Fortress during the Ottoman siege of 1537, and out again to Garitsa when the fortress walls were enlarged. The present church was built for them in 1589 and finished in 1594 by the Voulgaris family, who had received the relics as part of a daughter's dowry: a single-nave Heptanesian basilica with a timbered roof, its bell tower raised in 1620 on the model of the Greek church of San Giorgio dei Greci in Venice. The family held the relics as their own possession until 1925, when their descendants gave them to the Church of Corfu; in 1967 the shrine was constituted in Greek law as the Holy Pilgrimage of Saint Spyridon. wikipedia+1

Four times a year the relics are carried through the streets of the old town, and each procession keeps the memory of a deliverance the Corfiots attribute to the saint's intercession: on Palm Sunday for the plague of 1629, on Holy Saturday for a famine, on the first Sunday of November for the plague of 1673, and on 11 August for the lifting of the Ottoman siege of 1716. That siege began on 24 June and broke in the early hours of 11 August, when soldiers outside the walls are said to have seen a monk with a lighted torch coming out of the church; the Venetian general captain Andreas Pisani established the August procession by decree, and two gilded silver lamps the Venetian Senate sent in thanksgiving hang in the church. corfu tourist services+1

One relic travelled further than the rest. The saint's right hand was separated from the body about 1600 and given by Pope Clement VIII to Cardinal Cesare Baronio, who kept it in the Roman church of Santa Maria in Vallicella; it was returned to Corfu in 1986 and lies now with the body. The saint was honoured across the confessional line on the island long before that: the Latin archbishop Carolus Labia, who paid for the restoration of the Catholic cathedral in 1658, added the official celebration of Saint Spyridon to its calendar, and the cathedral keeps a chapel under his name. john sanidopoulos+1

☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Corfu Town

Church of Saint Spyridon

Ιερός Ναός Αγίου Σπυρίδωνος

The church is entered from a narrow lane in the Campiello quarter, and is dark, low and crowded with hanging lamps. The relics lie to the right of the marble iconostasis of 1864, in a double sarcophagus: an outer coffin of wood trimmed with silver leaf, and within it an inner one lined with red velvet, its base removable so that the slippers on the saint's feet can be changed. Pilgrims come to pray before the relic, to ask the saint's intercession and to leave their intentions; the reliquary is opened for veneration and the body is set upright at the church door on the great feasts. Overhead, the ceiling is divided into seventeen panels of the saint's life and miracles, painted by Panagiotis Doxaras in 1727 and copied by the Corfiot painter Nikolaos Aspiotis in 1852 after damp destroyed the originals, of which only the gilded outlines remain. Above the west door of the narthex hangs the coat of arms of the Romanov dynasty, from the years when the shrine stood under the protection of Imperial Russia. Shoulders are covered and shorts are not worn inside; service times are published on the shrine's own website. wikipedia+1

Address Agiou Spyridonos 32, 491 00 Kerkyra, Greece GPS 39.625113, 19.922660 Map Google Maps Web agios-spyridon.com

Cathedral of Saints James and Christopher

Duomo

In Town Hall Square, a five-minute walk from the Church of Saint Spyridon, stands the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Corfu, Zakynthos and Cephalonia — the church where the island's Catholics worship, known locally as the Duomo. A single-aisled basilica with six side chapels, consecrated in 1533, it became the Catholic cathedral of the diocese in August 1632. German bombs gutted its interior on the night of 13 September 1943, and restoration work lasted until 1970. It holds Konstantinos Tzanes's Virgin and Child of 1654, the bones of Saint Arsenius, first Bishop of Corfu, and — since Archbishop Carolus Labia added the saint's feast to its calendar in 1658 — a chapel of Saint Spyridon. lovin' corfu+3

Address Town Hall Square, 491 00 Kerkyra, Greece GPS 39.623561, 19.922611 Map Google Maps Web cathecclesia.gr

🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations

Feast of Saint Spyridon — 12 December

The day of the saint's repose and the island's greatest feast, kept over three days at the shrine. The Service of Supplication opens the celebration, the relic is lifted from its reliquary and set upright at the entrance of the church in the position the Corfiots call "at the door", and clergy and pilgrims come from across Greece and beyond. Western calendars keep his memory on 14 December.

Procession of 11 August

The largest of the four processions of the relics, in thanksgiving for the lifting of the Ottoman siege of 1716. The relic is carried through the old town, and all the philharmonic societies of Corfu take part.

Procession of Palm Sunday

In memory of the deliverance of Corfu from the plague of 1629.

Procession of Holy Saturday

In memory of a famine from which the island was delivered; the procession leaves the church in the morning, before the Paschal vigil.

Procession of the First Sunday of November

In memory of the deliverance of Corfu from the plague of 1673.

🛏️ Where to Stay

Bella Venezia (boutique hotel) — A peach-coloured townhouse hotel on a leafy old-town side-street, its public rooms styled like a cosy club with a cocktail bar, piano and gramophone, and its bedrooms looking over a garden or park; breakfast is served on the terrace in the warmer months. Booking.com's own city page groups it among the hotels at the centre of Corfu Town, the same old-town quarter that holds the Church of Saint Spyridon. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel

Cavalieri Hotel (hotel) — A 17th-century nobleman's mansion with an awarded rooftop restaurant looking out over Corfu Town, the fortress and the sea; lastminute.com names it among the hotels closest to the Church of Saint Spyridon. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel

More hotels in Corfu on Booking.com →

Accommodation available to book near Corfu. Pilgrim houses and religious guesthouses are listed above — many take bookings directly and do not appear on booking sites.

🚗 Getting There

By Air: Corfu International Airport "Ioannis Kapodistrias" (CFU) lies about 2.5 km from the centre of Corfu Town, so close that the church is a quarter of an hour away on landing. Taxis wait outside the terminal exits, and the Blue Line city bus No. 15 runs between airport, town and ferry port; the official timetables are published by the Corfu city bus company (Line 15, airport).

By Sea: Ferries cross from Igoumenitsa on the Greek mainland in 50 minutes to an hour and a half, at least sixteen times a day through the year, and from Sarandë in Albania in between half an hour and an hour and three quarters. In summer, car ferries from Italy serve the island from Brindisi (about 6.5 hours), Bari (8 to 10 hours) and Ancona (about 19 hours), from June to September. Corfu Town's port is the main one; the smaller port of Lefkimmi, in the south-east, carries passenger boats to Igoumenitsa.

On Foot: The church stands in the pedestrian heart of the old town. From the ferry port it is a flat walk of 20 to 25 minutes, over cobbles for the last of it.

📚 Further Reading

Sotos Chondropoulos. St Spyridon of Tremithus — A life of the saint for the general reader, 191 pages, following him from the sheepfolds of Cyprus through Nicaea to Corfu, with the miracles told at length.

Articles & Online Resources:

Saint Spyridon of Tremithus: Boast of the Orthodox — The same author's life of the saint in the Holy Trinity Monastery (Jordanville) edition, sold by the monastery's own bookstore.

The Fascinating History of the Relics of St. Spyridon — The documented account of the relics' journey from Trimythous to Corfu, including the fifteenth-century manuscript Bishop Methodios of Kerkyra found in 1808.

🎥 Recommended Videos

Saint Spyridon | Stories of Saints — The saint's life told simply for children, by Christian Family TV.

The Church with the Holy Relics of Saint Spyridon the Wonderworker — A minute inside the church, filmed by a pilgrim, by Orthodox England.

🔗 Useful Links

Holy Pilgrimage of Saint Spyridon — The shrine's own website, with the history of the relics and the order of services.

Metropolis of Kerkyra, Paxoi and the Diapontian Islands — The diocesan page for the pilgrimage.

Catholic Archdiocese of Corfu, Zakynthos and Cephalonia — The Catholic Church in Greece on the archdiocese, its cathedral and its churches on the island.

Visit Corfu — The municipality's visitor site, with the island's churches and the calendar of the processions.

Ferryhopper: Corfu — Ferry routes, crossing times and bookings for the island.

🧭 Nearby Pilgrimage Destinations

Patras (219 km) — The Basilica of Saint Andrew the Apostle, holding the apostle's skull and part of the cross on which he was crucified. Reached from Corfu by ferry to the mainland and road south.

Shkodër (273 km) — The Cathedral of Saint Stephen in northern Albania, where the Church survived the world's only officially atheist state, and the shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel.

Bari (308 km) — The Basilica of Saint Nicholas, built for the relics brought from Myra in 1087; the crypt is shared with the Orthodox for their liturgies. A summer ferry crosses from Corfu.

🪶 Closing Reflection

"At the first of the synods you appeared as a champion and wonder-worker, our God-bearing father Spyridon. Wherefore, you addressed the dead one in the grave, and the serpent you changed to gold. And while chanting in service your sacred prayers, you joined the angels concelebrating, O most holy one. Glory to Christ who glorified you, glory to Him who crowned you, glory to the one who works through you healings for everyone."

— Apolytikion of Saint Spyridon, First Mode