:: Ecclesiastical Museum at Serres

The Serres Ecclesiastical Museum occupies the second floor of the Diocesan Headquarters. It displays a collection of sacerdotal objects which come mainly from the local Monastery of St John the Baptist (Timiou Prodromou) and from churches within the Metropolitanate of Serres and Nigrita.

The exhibits are grouped in four categories: icons, wood-carvings and fragments of chancel screens, metal artefacts, and orphrey, the largest category being the icons, some of which bear the clear hallmarks of the local artistic tradition.

The collection is very important for the history of the religious and artistic life of Serres, Nigrita, and the wider area, because it ably represents artistic trends in, chiefly, post-Byzantine art.

The most important icons are of: the Panagia Hodegetria from the ruined Church of Ano Taxiarhis (14th cent.), Christ the Saviour and the Theotokos Pantanassa from the Church of Agios Georgios Kryoneritis (17th cent.), Christ the Saviour and the Theotokos Hodegetria from the Church of Agios Antonios in Serres (15–16th cent.), St Basil (18th cent.) from the same church, St John the Baptist from the Church of Agios Georgios in Sitohori (16th cent.), the Theotokos Hodegetria (16th cent.), the principal icons (including Christ Giving a Blessing) from the chancel screen of the Monastery of St John the Baptist. One outstanding nineteenth-century icon depicts St Spyridon with John, the second founder of the Monastery of St John the Baptist.

Of interest are the wood-carved fragments of chancel screens, such as one dating to the eighteenth century from the Church of Agios Georgios in Nigrita and another dating to the nineteenth century from Agios Nikolaos in Elaionas. There are also a collection of antimensia (the oldest dating to 1653), printed Gospels (1542 and 1614), a pair of gold-embroidered crosses and strips of fabric from a chasuble, and a pair of maniples (1706).