HISTORY
The first christian yearsWe don't have written witnesses or findings on the Christian presence in Ìagnesia prior to the 5th century A.D. Én the Proceedings of the 3rd Ecumenical Synod in 430 A.D. there is the signature of the Bishop Kleonikos of Demetrias. And in New Anchialos huge basilicas have been discovered which reveal the religious flourishing of the area from those years.
The archaeologists base this on the discovered altars and their additional buildings in order to conclude that at Fthiotides Thebes as the present dav Í Archialos was calledwe had a large Christian community
whose Bishop Peier was a driving force for the development of a wide religious,ecclesiastical and social activity. The visitor of the external area of the archaeological digs in New Anchialos and its museum finds himself before an astonishing revelation: the dynamic role of the Orthodox Church in society. The basilicas built either on top of the ruins of another or side by side, in the same or in successive ages, together with other edifices of an ecclesiastical and social character seem to proclaim this truth.
