Church of Maria SS. Della Catena or San Rocco

The Church of San Rocco, also called Chiesa della Catena, was the first building of worship built in the new urban center of Gioiosa Marea after the exodus from Monte Meliuso. The church, built in 1796 by the will of the prosecutor Nicolò Ferlazzo, has a single nave flanked on the left by the bell tower which houses two bells, one of which from 1652 from the old inhabited center. The high altar is adorned with rich Baroque mixed marble dating back to 1750 and houses the sixteenth-century marble effigy of the Gaginian school depicting the Madonna della Catena. Also this sculpture, like those of other churches of Gioiosa Marea, has undergone the move from the Church dedicated to her to Gioiosa Guardia to the new site on the coast after the natural cataclysms that forced the population to abandon the medieval village of Guardia.