Pantokrator Castle

Pantokrator Castle stands at the south-western tip of the Preveza peninsula, at the mouth of the strait that leads from the Ionian Sea into the Ambracian Gulf. Since 1478, whoever held this narrow passage controlled the gulf.

Ali Pasha built the castle after he took Preveza in 1806. Its exact date is debated. An Aristotle University study in the late 1980s dated the inner pentagonal fort to 1807–1808. More recent research places it around 1818, because a British visitor that summer described it as still under construction. It is named after a church of Christ Pantokrator that stood almost on the same spot.

Its most unusual feature is a wedge-shaped rivellino on the seaward side, one of very few of its kind still standing. Vaulted corridors inside it lead to five arched gun ports aimed at the channel. After 1912 the Greek Navy used the fort, and from about 1930 until 1968 it was the town prison. The chapel of the Agioi Anargyroi on top was founded in 1939.

The castle was declared a monument in 1965 and again in 1982. It has been closed to the public since 2017, when it was judged unsafe. In August 2026 the Ministry of Culture, working with the Region of Epirus and the Municipality of Preveza, announced the approval of a restoration study to repair the structure and open it safely to visitors again.