The Church of the Saviour’s Supper, which dominates the homonymous square, is the Metropolitan Church of Kalamata. It was founded in 1860 and consecrated in 1873, very close to the spot where the old church was located until 1770, where it was burnt down and for which a stone cross has been erected to the south-east of the modern church at the spot where it is believed to have been the Holy Trapeza with the inscription.
It is of the type of the cross-shaped inscribed church with a large dome and narthex, and has double bell towers. It may have been severely damaged in the 1886 and 1986 earthquakes, but both were restored. The temple houses the eponymous icon, which legend has it was found in the ruins of the temple destroyed in 1770 when the Turkish Pasha’s squire saw a woman in a dream telling him to dig there to find the miraculous icon.
The Metropolitan Church of the Assumption of the Saviour celebrates on 2 February with the procession of the icon, which has been held continuously since 1889, but the rituals, as established in 1948, last for a total of 14 days, beginning on 27 January and ending on 9 February with a solemn overnight vigil.
