The Monastery is built at an altitude of about a thousand meters in Taygetos, while to the west of the Monastery stretches a dense fir forest, to its north is Koumousta, while the whole surrounding area is full of chestnut pines and firs.
The Monastery celebrates during the feast of Zoodochos Pigi or Chrysopigi. It is noteworthy that all the Monasteries of the area, Gola, Zerbitsis, Faneromeni, Katafygiotissa, are dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
In difficult times, the years of the Turkish occupation, the foundation of Gola was placed. From foundational inscriptions we conclude that the Church was renovated in 1632. There is also an older testimony about the existence of the Monastery from 1608, in a document. From an inscription on a built-in marble we learn that the narthex is later. Another inscription certifies that the iconography of the narthex was done a little later, in 1673, by another iconographer.
The Monastery went through difficult times with the invasion of the Turkoarvanites and the Bardouniots who had allied with them.
The role of the Monastery during the period of the Turkish occupation in education was important, as the monastery financially helped schools in the neighboring villages.
The Catholic Church, the Church and the Narthex of the Monastery are recorded with frescoes that cover all its internal surfaces with harmonious polychrome. Most of them are preserved in very good condition, while others, especially the Narthex, have been eroded by humidity and have become dark and unclear. According to the existing testimonies, the iconographic work of Katholikos does not belong to this iconographer, nor was it done in the same period of time. An inscription that survives above the entrance testifies that the frescoes of the Temple are works of Dimitrios Kakavas, which were finished in October 1632, while another inscription that survives above the gate of the Narthex states that the Narthex was built in 1673 and from the different expressive idiom, it is evident that the hagiographers are different persons.
Worthy of attention in the frescoes is the dome of the Temple, where the Pantokrator dominates imposingly in the center followed by four zones around him, in which the first one depicts the Angelic ranks of twelve Archangels, the second scenes from the life cycle of the Virgin, the third 14 full-length prophets and in the fourth zone in the western part is represented the theme "'Above the Prophets'" and in the eastern "I am the vine and you are the vines".
Editor: Fotini Anastasopoulou