The women's Monastery of Archangelos is located 35 km west of Limenas and is a Metochi of the Philotheos Monastery of Mount Athos. It is said that in 1110 AD, the ascetic Loukas built a church of Archangel Michael, from where the holy Holy Spirit flowed. The date of the establishment of the Monastery is not known, but it is mentioned in a chrysobull of the Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos of 1287 as the monastery of the Philotheus Monastery. The Monastery must have been built on the site of the temple around 1821. According to an inscription on the western entrance of the temple (3 height x 5 square x 2 length), repairs were made in 1835. The temple, with arches and a dome, dominates the edge of the cliff with a view in the sea The Monastery had a large fortune from the donations of the pilgrims, which was distributed in 1927 to 72 landowners. In 1974, the first nuns from the Monastery of Panagia Portaria of Volos settled in the deserted monastery and since then it has been operating as a women's retreat. In the monastery complex you can see various buildings (guesthouses, monks' cells) as well as a large newer cruciform church with a dome and arches. In the Monastery is kept inside the icon of the Archangel (hexapterygo), part of the Holy Helos, that is, a part of the nail that went into the right hand of the Crucified One. It is celebrated on November 8 and Diakainisimo Tuesday.
Editor: Niki Kalopaidis
