Christ School at Episkopi
Between the villages Episkopi and Sgourokefali, province Pediada, we meet a beautiful small park with pine trees, in the middle of which there is the old temple of the Lord Christ (Christos). The small single-nave church functioned as the temple of a small monastery that was a dependency of the Monastery at Agarathos.
However, this place is still known as the School of Christ because in 1882 it was chosen to house a Greek School (post-primary School). Due to repair works, the school was originally hosted at Agarathos monastery and was later (1885) moved to the convent of Christ. The head of the period 1885-1889 was Titus Zografidis, one of the most important hierarchs of the era. The school very soon acquired a high reputation throughout the province.
During the slaughter of Anopolis (1896) by the Ottomans, all the monasteries of the region were devastated. The Monastery of Christ was burned, but the damage was relatively minor and soon repaired. The school continued its operation till 1906, when the Cretan State closed it due to absence of students.
Today around the temple we still see the exterior walls of the school, but the rest buildings were demolished to form the park. In the church yard there is a memorial of the Cretan leader of the Province Pediada during the last revolutions of the Ottoman Era, Antonios Tryfitsos, who was killed along with his men during the battle of Episkopi on June 25, 1897
