The Christian population of Arbanassi had been circumspect. The exterior of their early 17 th Century Nativity Church did not have the typical Orthodox dome or the shape of the cross, and its windows were discrete. A brick circle on the ground inside substituted for the dome. The frescoes on the wall had secular elements. There was a twelve-sided zodiac as the circle of life and women in local dresses as pilgrims to the Holy Land. Among inscriptions in Greek, the figure of Eve was oddly identified by Latin letters, Hava.