An Early Christian Basilica

The bay of Porto Rafti (Λιμην Μεσογαιας) was a major port in Ancient Greece. The villages of Steiria, Prasiai, and Koroni were around the bay.  At Steiria (Porto Rafti) there was a settlement, a harbor with its pier still visible, a large cemetery and a basilica indicating a large population. 

Because Porto Rafti was the only bay on the east shores of Attica boats travelling to and from the Aegean islands and Asia Minor used it to conduct trade with Athens.

Few remaining antiquities are left around the bay.  At Drivlia (Steiria) the ruins of the Early Christian basilica (Αγια Κυριακή?) still exist.  The three-sided funerary basilica has been excavated and is located nearby the large Roman cemetery in use in the 4^th-6^thcentury BC.  In the same area remains of a bath complex and houses and multiple coin finds attest to a prosperous early Christian settlement. 

The invention of the early Christian church (Εκκλησια) was an important architectural development as it was achieved by the assimilation and rejection of previous prototypes, such as the Greco-Roman temples, and the Synagogue.  Basilica is the Latin tem for a large, important church taken from the Greek Βασιλικη Στοα that means King’s hall or Palace.  Basilicas are rectangular buildings with side aisles and pillars extending their length and an apse at one end. It was this type of building the early Christians adopted for their churches, possibly to differentiate them from the temples in which rectangular walled structure was inside and it was surrounded by pillars.  

Porto Rafti early Christian basilica as all Catholic and Orthodox churches faces east.  This orientation was so it faces towards Jerusalem. Another possibility is that because early Christian churches were constructed at sites where Ancient Greek temples existed most of which were aligned to the sun ie East.