Alepochori

Alepochori, in the region of Metaxades in Evros is built right on the Greek-Bulgarian borders. The last houses of Alepochori are 300 meters from the neighboring country. It is said that the village during the Ottoman rule was entirely burned and rebuilt by the Christian inhabitants of the surrounding villages.

The legend says that in Alepochori was a Turk Agha that took the Christian brides on their first wedding night in his own house. The villagers managed with a lot of cunning to send an envoy to Constantinople to protest to the Sultan, who vindicated them and deposed the Agha. Leaving the village, he called the residents “foxes” and so Alepochori (fox village) took its name.

In Alepochori lies the Late Byzantine church of Saint Athanasios. It was built in 1729, humble, with no windows and steeple, but with frescoes of rare beauty. The representation of Saint Christopher in the form of a dog is impressive, as well the gynaeceum, which was separated from the nave with trellises and in which there are representations of “sins”, namely the punishment of sinners.