What Is Sikinos Known For?

Sikinos holds a monument that's changed identity at least three times over roughly two thousand years, and a 2018 excavation there turned up a discovery archaeologists weren't expecting.

Sikinos is known first for the Episkopi Monastery, originally built as a Roman burial monument in the 2nd or 3rd century AD. For years, historians believed the structure had served earlier as a temple to Apollo Pythius, though more recent scholarship identifies it specifically as a Roman mausoleum. In the 17th century, the building was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin, complete with an added dome, bell tower, and chancel, and it remains one of the few sites in Greece where Roman and Byzantine layers of history sit stacked directly on top of each other in a single standing structure. A 2018 restoration uncovered a hidden grave belonging to a noblewoman named Neiko, along with her gold jewelry, and in 2022, the Ephorate of Antiquities of the Cyclades received a Europa Nostra Award for the excavation and restoration work carried out at the site.

The island is also known for the Monastery of Zoodohos Pigi, built in 1690 on a cliff edge above Chora, which once served as a refuge for residents defending against pirate raids and functions today as a women's monastery with fortified architecture that still reflects that original purpose.

Sikinos holds a real Byzantine icon collection too, tracing back to painters who fled Constantinople after its fall and developed the Cretan School style of icon painting, a tradition preserved in the island's small museum in Chora.

Sikinos connects easily by ferry to Ios and Folegandros, both nearby islands sharing similar Cycladic layers of Roman, Byzantine, and Venetian history.