The Church of Agios Dionysios is prominently located at the port of Zakynthos. Agios Dionysios, the patron saint of the island, is enshrined here, with his relics housed in a silver-carved tabernacle (1829), crafted by the silversmith Diamantis Bafas (1746-?) and his son George Bafas (1789-1854), who hailed from Kalarrytes in Epirus. This silver tabernacle is kept in a separate room within the church. George Bafas also created the silver cover of the icon of the Saint (1820). The church is the largest on the island and is also renowned for its magnificent, wood-carved iconostasis and its impressive frescoes by painters of the Ionian school -Nikolaos Doxaras (1706/10-1775) and his student Nikolaos Koutouzis (1741-1813). In 1766 Koutouzis painted The Litany in the women’s shrine of St. Dionysius. Dominating the port, the church features a turreted bell tower reminiscent of St Mark’s in Venice. The tower exceeds 40 metres in height and is one the island’s most iconic landmarks.

The current church stands on the site of an earlier one, which was founded in 1708 and completed in 1764, but destroyed by the great earthquake of 1893. In 1900, a committee was formed to rebuild it. The present church was founded in 1925, and construction began in 1931, following designs by the architect Anastasios Orlandos (1887-1979), in the building type of a three-aisled basilica. The church was inaugurated in 1948, and thanks to its seismic-resistant construction, it withstood the devastating earthquake of 1953.