This photo was taken just before sunset, like my recent photo from Greece. It is sitting in the hillside above a little village called Kardamili. Kardamili is our favorite place in Greece. I am adding a bit of history about the churches of Mani.

Mani, the southernmost and middle peninsula of the Peloponnese or Morea, straddling the districts of Lakonia and Messenia in southern Greece, is a treasure trove of Byzantine and post Byzantine churches, Frankish castles and stunning scenery.
The isolated aspect of this beautiful area, combined with the independent nature of its inhabitants meant that some traditions developed separately from the rest of the Peloponnese and Greece so that a distinct society made its mark on the landscape. To this day the architecture of the area is famed for the tower houses and fortified family dwellings from the period of the Ottoman occupation of Greece.
A Greek church is a very different building to a western European affair. Even before the Gothic movement western churches strained upwards. Their architects' basic intention being to reach up to the heavens. Greek churches bring heaven to earth. They are generally small and the paintings (or mosaics) rather than lifting your eyes and spirit higher contain you in the space, surrounding you with familiar glowing representations of the faith and liturgy. Both western and eastern Christian traditions depend in some fashion or other on theatricality - I defy the hardest hearted atheist (I'm one) to resist the appeal of organ music, incense and sheer baroque kitsch of a catholic church service in such as Vierzehnheiligen in Bavarian Frankonia. A Greek orthodox service is similarly full of effect - especially on a Saint's day or a festival. The service is ritualistically gnomic to the point of incomprehensibility and simultaneously strikes deep emotional chords.