PLAKA: THE BISHOP'S WELL AND THE FISH.

The old convent of the Holy Unmercenaries (Agii Anargyroi) is located in Plaka, the old neighborhood of Athens. During the Ottoman period it became a dependency (Metohi) of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem.

The main church is located in the courtyard of the monastery, surrounded by monastic cells and outbuildings. In the courtyard, a well would supply the monastics and the faithful with fresh water from the rock of the Acropolis. Connected to the well, there was a narrow tunnel, a burrow that the monks had dug, either to hide valuable objects or for themselves, to escape to the neighboring houses during raids and persecutions. However, there is also a funny story about that well and tunnel:

An exarch (church governor) once received a fish, a sea bream as a gift. He asked some of his assistants to hang it in the well to keep it cool and fresh until the next day.

However, a neighbor who overheard the exarch through the burrow that echoed his voice, secretly sent his child to crawl in the tunnel and take the fish that was hanging in the well.

The following day he cooked it and invited the Exarch for lunch.

- Bless you, my friend. I had craved fish and yesterday someone brought me one. Then I hung it in the well to keep it fresh, but it fell in and was lost.

- Don’t tell me, your excellency! Then what about us, who fished this sea bream in our own well? I say, could it be the one that you lost?