Stagira

LocationStagira

Stagira is a village located at the foot of Mount Stratonikos, at an altitude of 500 meters, on the northeastern side of Chalkidiki. Their distance from the city of Thessaloniki is 73 km. They took their name from the ancient town of Stagira, which is located at a coastal position 10 kilometers eastwards and is the place where the great philosopher and university student Aristotle was born.

Ancient Stagira is located at a coastal position, 10 kilometers east of the modern (current) mountain village of Stagira. The ancient city of Stagira, where Aristotle was born, was destroyed by Philip II but was rebuilt by Alexander the Great in honor of his master. This ancient city is next to the modern settlement of Olympiada and is a visiting archaeological site.

The old name of the mountainous younger village of Stagira was Kazantzis Mahalas and was one of the villages of Mandemohoria. The inhabitants worked in the nearby mines during Byzantine times and this continued during the Ottoman domination. From Stagira was Athanassios Stagaritis (1780 – 1840) and Eleftherios Michael a fighter of 1821 from neighboring Horouda. Stagira also gave birth to the new Martyr Savvas, who became a monk in the Monastery of Kostamonitos of Mount Athos and martyred with four other monks during the Revolution of Chalkidiki in 1821.

At the entrance of the village today, visitors can visit the park where the statue of Aristotle is located, and to the left the hill of Saint Dimitrios with the complex of Sidirokafsia. Sidirokafsia was the seat of the mines and a major administrative center of the area, with its own mint. There are also other interesting monuments such as towers, public baths and the konaki of Madem Aga, from the time of the Sidirokafsia.

The temple of the Virgin Mary, of great archaeological importance, was built in 1814 and is one of the few in Greece in cruciform rhythm. In the Old Church at the top of the village that was built in 1903 in a rock, called Spiliotissa a big festival is happening on the 8th of September. Next to it there is one of the towers of the Sidirokafsia era and near it many houses are built on top of older ones from the 15th and 16th centuries.