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Origin and history

The Greek chapel, also known as the Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel Chapel, is a suburban oratory built in the 16th century on the road to the Sanguinary Islands in Ajaccio. This place, nicknamed the "Tombel Way" because of the numerous funeral chapels that border it, houses a simple building composed of a porch, a nave and an apse. Four chapels of various shapes and outbuildings were gradually added.

Between 1675 and 1774 the chapel was dedicated to the worship of the Greek community from Maina (Peloponese), who had first taken refuge in Genoa before settling in Ajaccio and Cargesis. Napoleon Bonaparte, born in the city, frequently walked there. In 1810, General Antoine Pascal, Count Fiorella, hero of the Battle of Castiglione (1796), was buried there.

The building, registered with historical monuments by order of 9 March 1927, now belongs to the commune of Ajaccio. Its modest architecture, marked by successive additions, reflects its role as a community and funeral dooratory. The chapel thus illustrates the cultural exchanges in the Mediterranean and the history of migration in Corsica.

The Greek chapel is part of a wider religious and memorial landscape, where the sacred buildings served as places of worship, assembly for the brotherhoods and burials. Its location on a frequented axis, near the Sanguinary Islands, makes it a witness to the religious practices and social dynamics of modern times in Corsica.

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