Mosque of Athens

Greece's first state-built mosque since independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1833. The plain, white-rendered hall in the industrial Votanikos district of western Athens opened in 2020 after decades of political conflict between the state, the Orthodox Church and the Muslim community. Athens was the last EU capital to receive an official mosque, even though tens of thousands of Muslims have lived in the city for decades, mostly migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Egypt and Syria. Older Ottoman-era mosques in the Plaka, such as the Fethiye and Tzistarakis mosques, had long been deconsecrated. The architecture deliberately omits minaret and dome to avoid friction with the Orthodox environment. Visitors find a functional prayer hall for around 350 worshippers, busiest on Fridays; a quiet marker of how late institutional religious plurality arrived in Athens.