TINOS, Greece — A glance in any direction on the Greek island of Tinos reveals at least a dozen chapels, recognizable as tiny houses of worship by their miniature belltowers and simple crosses.

There are some 1,000 — more than one per 10 residents — and they're owned and cared for by ordinary families, mostly Orthodox Christians but also Catholics, in a rare tradition rooted in centuries of history that they're adamant about passing down the generations.

Eleftheria Levanti regularly prays that her children and grandchildren will enjoy the protection of the saints honored at her family's three chapels. In a poem she's written, she compares them to "pigeons that have stopped to rest. These are our small chapels, the houses of God built by his children to praise him.”

Across the wind-swept

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