It was the predominantly Turkish district of the city with its center the current 1821 Square. Nowadays, on the northwestern side there is the Venetian church of San Rocco, on the eastern side of the square is the church of St. Nicholas. Immediately after the conquest of the city of Chania in 1645, the Ottomans converted the church of St. Nicholas, which was the church of the Monastery of the Dominican nuns into the Mosque of the Monarch (Kioutsouk Hassan Pasha). The specificity of the mosque is at the minaret, which had two balconies (serifiedes), because it was a Sultan mosque. It was in the center of this square on a huge buttonwood, on which the Ottomans on 19 May, 1821 hanged the bishop of Kissamos Melchizedek. What draws the attention is the facade of the building which illustrates both a church and a mosque.

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SOURCE: CHANIA MUNICIPALITY LIBRARY