Merbaka

The principal modern church, that of the Holy Trinity, in the village square.

Merbaka (Greek: Μέρμπακα), but officially Agia Trias (Αγία Τρίας, "Holy Trinity"), is a village in the province of Argolis, in the Peloponnese near Argos, Greece. It was officially re-named on December 29, 1953^[1]

Merbaka is thought to have been named for William of Moerbeke, a 13th-century Roman Catholic archbishop of Corinth, scholar and Philhellene from Flanders. A roughly contemporaneous Byzantine-Gothic Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God (Greek: Νάος της Κοίμησις Θεοτόκου, popularly known as Παναγια της Βούζης, Panagia tis Bouzis, "Our Lady of Bouzis") in the village may have been built under his auspices.^[2] The church's popular name is held to have come from a prominent Lemnian family of landowners who donated the land for a mediaeval monastery nearby; their name and social position is attested by contemporaneous documents with the seal of Michael Makrembolites Doukas. The monastery was sited further inland from its existing twin, the Monastery of Areias near Nafplio – popularly known as "The Holy Mountain" — to protect the monks and ecclesiastical property from piratical raiding.^[3]

Merbaka's official name likely stems from the inclusion of three "saints" on a re-used Classical pediment on the thirteenth-century church: villagers likely interpreted these figures as a representation of the Holy Trinity, and unofficially renamed the church to reflect this; in time, the name was applied to the new church, and later, to the village itself. Thε older church includes other recycled antiquities like a Roman dedication, in Latin, to Quintus Caecilius Metellus Creticus, a Roman proconsul in Greece who was noted for his suppression of piracy.^[4]

From the end of the Sixth Ottoman-Venetian War to 1770, when it was attacked by Albanian bandits, Argos was the seat of the Orthodox Metropolis of Nauplion and Argolis, due to the Venetian imposition of a Latin bishop at Argos.

"The community and the family of Constantine Evangelos Tombras donated the clock 1952."

The modern church of the Holy Trinity, first erected in 1898, was torn down and rebuilt in 1934.^[5] A plaque on the front of the belltower says that the clock was donated in 1952.

Merbaka is part of the municipal unit of Midea. According to the 2001 Greek census, the village had a population of 1,267 inhabitants.

Notable people

• Theofanis Tombras - former general manager of OTE and alleged participant in the "Koskotas scandal", for which he was acquitted

References

1. "Merbaka—Agias Trias". Institute for Neohellenic Research, Name Changes of Settlements in Greece. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
2. Prof. Gary Reger, An Athenian Diary Retrieved May 10, 2010.
3. Argolikos Archival Library of History and Culture, «Τοποθεσία του Βούζη = Μέρμπακας;» ("Does the place-name of Bouzis = Merbaka? - in Greek)
4. Reger, An Athenian Diary
5. The Reverend Oeconomos Anastasios Salapatas, Μέρμπακα: Η Εκκλησία της Αγίας Τριάδος . 18 September 2009. Retrieved May 10, 2010.

Coordinates: 37°38′16″N 22°48′15″E / 37.6377°N 22.8041°E