Childhood

In 330 AD, the year the Imperial capital moved to Constantinople from Rome, Kydonia becomes  the seat of the first paleo-Christian Episcopate after a continuing spread of the new religion in the region of Western Crete. As a Byzantine province, in a time the eastern empire focused mostly on its interests and enemies in Anatolia, Crete and Kydonia in particular fell into obscurity and a kind of historical lethargy, with Christian religion being the dominant feature of that era. As an independent administrative region under the supervision of a Byzantine General, the island of Crete had its military & administrative center in the city of Gortyna, following the footsteps of the Roman administration.

By the time of the 7th century it became clear that the Byzantine navy was not sufficient for the protection of every single island of its realm. Crete, that by the mid 600’s had a population of about 250.000, suffered from the successive raids of the Vandals (end of 5th century), of the Slavs (beginning of 7th century) and especially the Arabs, who raided Crete in the 650’s, in the 670’s, during the first decades of the 8th century and finally in the 820’s when a large group of exiles from Muslim Andalusia managed to conquer the whole island and establish the Emirate of Crete with the fort of Chandax (modern day Heraklion) serving as their power-center.

The Arabic period that lasted for more than a century shattered the Christian population of the island that was persecuted & forced to flee to the mountains. The Arabs renamed the settlement of Kydonia into Al Hanim (the sanctuary). According to current belief and various sources  in the wider region of Kydonia, stood a settlement with the name of Αλχανία κώμη (alchanía kómi) dedicated to the Greek God of Hephaestus, the Roman God Vulcanus later, a name the Arabs found easier to pronounce.  Although the historical sources from this period are few it seems the Arabic population was only interested about the coastal areas of the island and not its mainland. For approximately 135 years the Emirate of Crete was a major thorn in the Byzantine side, controlling the sea routes of the Eastern Mediterranean & functioning as a safe haven for corsair fleets from the Muslim world that ravaged the Byzantine shores of the Aegean Sea.