It is a small late-Byzantine church of the 16th century, located in the center of the settlement of Petra, which is a low, single-aisled, wooden-roofed basilica, typical of the Middle Ottoman period, on the site of an early Christian church, parts of which are preserved in the masonry and in the courtyard area. Information about the temple of St. Nikolaos Petras we derive from the work of Metropolitan Gavriil of Mithymni (1618-1621) “Description of Lesvos” and from a Jerusalem codex of 1653-54.
The walls are fully covered with three layers of hagiographies, the oldest of which are considered to be from the sanctuary (16th century). Epigram refers to the Peloponnesian painter Nikolaos Fitzis or Ritzis, who beautified the temple during the renovation of 1721.
The current form of the monument came as a result of the restoration work of 1937-38, which deprived it of the small portico of the western side with the overlying matroneum and an important part of the iconographic program