Palermo, Sicily Italy
Byzantine (Greek Catholic)
The church takes one of its names, Ammiraglio, from its founder, Admiral George of Anticoch. It was originally Eastern Orthodox and dates from 1143. In 1184 a convent of Benedictine nuns was founded adjacent to the church by Eloisa Martorana. The convent absorbed the church in the 15th centukry and since then it has been commonly known as "La Martorana." The structure was extensively modified between the 16th and 18th centuries. Returned to the Greek Orthodox community in 1935, it now serves as a co-cathedral of the Piana Degli Albanesi Diocese, one of the Albanian Eastern Rite churches in Italy, and is used by the parish of San Nicolò dei Greci, whose church was destroyed in World War II bombing. The mosaic of St. Nicholas enthroned, in the right apse, was saved from the Greek church.