Byzantine Church the Transfiguration of Lykodemou

During the Ottoman period, the church was  the katholikon (central place of worship) of a monastery, the greater part of which was destroyed in 1780 by Ali Heseki, a Turkish official, in order to build a city wall. In 1847 the octogona-type church waspurchased by the Russian government, to serve the religious needs of the Russian communityin Athens. Extensive repairs were made at that timeand a high bell tower added. The present iconostasis (icon-screen), in the Russian stlye, was installed instead of the low Byzantine templon (parclose), and the murals by Ludwig Thiersch (1847) replaced by the extant Byzantine wall paintings.