Monasteries

Monasteries

Monasteries

Monasteries

Koroni Monastery

According to tradition, it was founded in 1123, when an icon of the Virgin Mary was found in the area. It was recognized
as stauropygian, but in the following centuries it fell into decline and was destroyed. It was rebuilt at the beginning of the 16th century by Andreas Bouno, a local lord who is also depicted in the iconography of the catholicon. During the Turkish occupation, the monastery maintained its privileges and hosted a school, where important personalities taught. During the years of the Occupation it was at the center of conflicts and in 1943 it was destroyed by the German troops. It was rebuilt and maintained after the liberation and today it functions as a men's. Its history is connected with Saint Seraphim, Archbishop of Fanari and Neochori, who became a monk here around 1580 and whose coffin is kept in the monastery. From the 16th century complex, the catholicon and a wing of cells are preserved. The catholicon follows the type of the churches of Agioreitis, i.e. it is cruciform with three niches and a dome supported by four columns. Its interior is lined with hagiographies from 1587, works by the monk Daniel, who follows the Cretan School of painting.

Virgin Pelekiti

Virgin Pelekiti is located above Lake Plastira and is an impressive architectural creation of the 15th century. When exactly it was created losted somewhere between tradition and history so the exact date is not officially known.

According to the legend, the monastery was "hewn" at the specific location, on the rocks of Agrafa with wooden tools following the suggestion of the Virgin Mary who appeared in the craftsmen's dream, hence the name of the Virgin Pelekiti.A very small miraculous icon, in the 15th century, was the reason that the former castle was turned into a monastery and, according to tradition, the holy martyr Damianos is said to be its founder.

In its cavernous interior, it reveals two recorded temples while, in the remaining areas, the escape hatches, the hidden school, the footprints of the Virgin Mary, etc. stand out. Since 2012, it has not hosted a fraternity, despite everything, it operates - apart from major holidays - every week during the summer months.Entering the church you will first see a temple with natural domes from the rock it was cut into. There is also an impressive wood-carved gilded iconostasis as well as rare frescoes.

Holy Monastery of Petra

Its name is due to a very large extended rock, which falls steeply into the green of a large forest area, while at the same time creating a plateau, on which the Monastery is built. Almost at the foot of this rock, to the east, a large natural cave is formed, where only at its entrance are there carving points.

From this rock, the Monastery was named the Holy Monastery of Petra, dedicated to the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Tradition states that in the green landscape of the area, every night the inhabitants who were in the place of Sotira, from the area opposite the cave, saw a light. Guided by this, they reached the hollow of the rock, where they encountered the icon of Panagia Odegetria (dim. 0.75X0.54X0.035), the work, according to tradition, of Evangelist Loukas.

Panagiotis Mylonas, in his work "The Monastery of Petra in South Pindos", mentions that hermits once lived in this cave, who later built the Monastery on the plateau, south of the rock.Code 44 of the Alexios Kolyvas collection mentions 1557 as the earliest chronological point for the construction work of the Holy Monastery, the year which refers to the death of the "mastrogi" (Sic), an important person of the technical staff of the construction of the temple.

An indication that construction work on the Monastery had begun a little earlier. In 1593, with the completion of the catholicon, the image of the Virgin Mary was transferred and placed from the cave to the church "in procession and in the presence of priests and many villagers from all the neighboring villages".