The Feast of Panagia Ypapanti

The Feast of Panagia Ypapanti is the patronal feast of Kalamata, observed on 2 February — the Presentation of Christ at the Temple in the Orthodox liturgical calendar — centred on the Metropolitan Cathedral of Ypapanti in the old town. The icon at the centre of the day was found during Ottoman rule buried in the ruins of a small church, half-burnt, its painted face intact while the reverse bore the fire. It was first carried through the streets in 1841, brought out against a cholera epidemic, and from the later nineteenth century the procession was established as an annual rite under the Metropolitans of Messenia.

The cathedral was founded on 25 January 1860 and consecrated on 19 August 1873 by Archbishop Prokopios Georgiadis, raised north of the older Byzantine church where the icon was first uncovered. The feast follows a fixed order: vespers on the eve, a hierarchal liturgy on the morning of 2 February, and then the procession. The silver-framed icon is carried behind the philharmonic bands along Ypapantis, 23rd of March, Aristomenous and Faron streets, a route through the city’s principal thoroughfares that returns to the cathedral. Hierarchs from across Greece concelebrate; the army and the city stand with them; pilgrims come from well beyond Messenia.