"Appropriate
to your calling,
O Champion Paraskevi,
you worshipped with the readiness your name bears.
For an abode you obtained faith, which is your namesake.
Wherefore, you pour forth healing and intercede for our souls."
- Apolytikion
of St. Paraskevi-
(First tone)
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The small church dedicated
to St. Paraskevi is located inside the cemetary walls; today it
is a one-room structure, fitting about 2 to 3 persons in all,
and is used to house icons and also functions as a place where
visitors to the cemetery can light candles in memory of those
they have lost
Most of the icons housed in the little
building are modern, with the exception of an 1844 icon donated
by Papathanasis Patilis. The room itself is actually what remains
of a larger church, built in 1844.
The structure visible today was rebuilt out of
the original church's remains in 1963-4, under the instruction
of Elias A. Valaoras.
A plaque tacked near the entrance reads,
"Aghia Paraskevi 1965. Association of Peristians in Athens. By
donation of Athanasios I. Valaoras, Elias Ath. Valaoras, Filios
(wife) of Elias Valaoras."
The ancient cemetery used to lie directly above
the main square of Perista, between the old St. Athanasios and
the store owned by D. Kommatas.
In it, graves containing prehistoric
skeletons folded in half and covered by large slabs of rock were
found. Unfortunately, many of the ancient graves and artifacts
were ruined and/or lost when a new road was being constructed
in the area in 1967.
At the start of the nineteenth
century, there were two fully functioning cemeteries in Perista.
One was the Muslim cemetery, located above the area called Lainaki
today, and the other was the cemetery
for Christians, located between the new St. Athanasios and the
current location of St. Paraskevi.
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