Aghia Paraskevi

Location: Mesta

It is one of the most ancient churches of the village. The sign on its lintel reads the date 29 March 1709 but is more recent and refers to a repairing that the church had. The Turks destroyed other churches of the village in 1822, however it is really weird and at the same time miraculous how the church of Aghia Paraskevi escaped this catastrophe. Pantokrator dominates in the centre of the dome and scenes of Jesus' life and Passion are depicted on the right and left walls. Those representations are complement by pictures of saints.

It is worth mentioning here that the large number of churches inside and outside the village reveals the peak that the region reached during Middle Age. There were nineteen churches inside the village. Fortunately most of them exist up to these days, in a very good condition. There were seventeen more outside the village and all of them still persist. There used to be thirty-seven churches on the wider expanse of Mesta.

Two of them became schools since the end of the last century. At the square there were two churches: Christ's church (it does not exist nowadays) that was a boys' school and St. Mary's church that was a girls' school. What shows Mesta dwellers's thirst for learning is the fact that they had been interested very much in their children's education.