Overview

• Roughly 1,000 privately owned chapels—more than one per 10 residents—dot Tinos, with upkeep handled by ordinary families.
• Custodians span generations and backgrounds, from devout Orthodox and Catholic residents to less observant locals who still keep festivals.
• The small Cycladic-style structures are typically whitewashed with blue accents, often lack utilities, yet remain open and stocked for visitors.
• Annual panigiri center each chapel’s feast day, with scaled-down but steady community worship, food and social rituals.
• Historians trace the density of chapels to Venetian land rights, Ottoman-era tolerance, sailors’ vows and family memorial practices.