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Another view of the harbour of Agios Efstratios

Ai Stratis ( Agios Efstratios ) Island

Agios Efstratios or Ai Stratis is an island in the northeast Aegean with 270 inhabitants (2011 census). Administratively it belongs to the Lemnos regional unit of the North Aegean region. From 1912 until the implementation of the plan Kallikratis (2010) it was subject to the prefecture of Lesvos based in Mytilene.

It is the most isolated island of the Archipelago and is 18 nautical miles from Lemnos, 38 from Skyros, 42 from Lesvos, and 48 nautical miles from Halkidiki. The island has an uneven triangle shape, covering 49.6 square kilometers and a coastline of 51.6 kilometers.

The island in ancient times was called Alonissos, from the words Ils and Island (sea and island). Pausanias records it under the name Nea because it was believed to have emerged from the sea at the time of the sinking of the Homeric island of Chrysi, which was probably located near Cape Methones, northeast of Lemnos.

The name Saint Eustratius was established because during the Byzantine era, Saint Eustratius the Wonderworker, from the Vijian of Bithynia (ancient Tarsus), the abbot of the Holy Monastery of Avgar or Agavyria of the Greater Monastery of Atholimos the Great Monastery This island, due to a sea-related disturbance, was on its way to the place of its exile, as it was opposed to the iconoclastic policy of Byzantine Emperor Leo IV. His tomb is said to be located on the island, which is why it was named after him, unknown when exactly, while large tracts of land in Ai Strati belong to Mount Athos monasteries and mainly to the Monastery of Lavra, where the monastery of Saint Eustratius is kept. His relics are not mentioned to exist anywhere. If indeed, his tomb was there, they might one day be discovered.

The island is mentioned in Christodoulos Buondelmonti's Islet in 1420 as Sanstrati and in the Atlas of Laurenberg in 1656 is recorded as Chryse S.Stratj (Golden - Saint Efstratios). On the Map of Riga, the work of Riga Velestinli published in 1797 in Vienna, the island is listed as New Saint Efstratios.

 

Ag. Efstratios is the only village
Aghios Efstratios has been inhabited since Mycenaean times