Saint Gerasimos monastery, named after the wonder-maker and protector of Kefalonia, is the most well-known monastery on the island. Gerasimos of Kefalonia was born in 1506 and comes from an aristocratic Byzantine family. He is known for very specific ascetic life, but also by the fact that he foretold his own death. He became a monk on Mount Athos and was appointed priest in Jerusalem, where he served for 12 years in the Church of the Resurrection of Christ. He abandoned Jerusalem continue to lead as a anchorite on the island of Crete and Zakynthos.
At 49, he arrives at Kefalonia and his life continues in the same style, this time in a cave near Argostoli, and then moves to the mountainous region of Valsamati, where he founded the monastery in 1559. He died 20 years later.
Gerasimos is known as the healer of people possessed by demons. In the church within the monastery lay his undamaged Holy Relics. Days of this saint is celebrated on August 15 and October 20, when a large number of pilgrims visit the monastery. During these days, the monastery also provides special halls, where for 40 days they can fast and pray in order to free themselves from the demon.
The monastery is about 13km from Argostoli and Sami. The road is not complicated. Considering that Kefalonia is a mountainous island, and you have to reach the monastery using curvy and narrow road.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.