St. Stephen Monastery

Kalabaka, Greece

The Monastery of St. Stephen was founded by St. Antoninus Cantacuzene, who is thought to be a son of the Serb ruler Nicephorus II of Epirus, in c. 1400.

This monastery rests on the plain rather than on a cliff. It was shelled by the Nazis during World War II who believed it was harboring insurgents and was abandoned. The monastery was given over to nuns in 1961 and they have reconstructed it into a flourishing nunnery, with 28 nuns in residence in 2015.

The old katholikon (main church), which was rebuilt in 1545 and frescoed shortly thereafter, still stands. The new katholikon was built in 1798 and is currently being frescoed by a modern artist. It is dedicated to the martyred St. Charalambos, whose head it contains.

The refectory (15th century) has a surviving fresco of the Virgin in the apse. The monastery contains a small museum of vestments and other religious objects and the nuns sell handmade embroideries and other trinkets.

Monasteries of Meteora are included on the UNESCO World Heritage List.

References:

Comments

Your name

Website (optional)


Address

Meteora, Kalabaka, Greece
See all sites in Kalabaka

Details

Founded: c. 1400
Category: Religious sites in Greece

More Information

www.visitmeteora.travel
www.sacred-destinations.com

Rating

4.6/5 (based on Google user reviews)

Interesting Sites Nearby


Monastery of Great Meteoron (2,2 km)
Varlaam Monastery (1,9 km)
Roussanou Monastery (1,5 km)
Meteora (1,5 km)
Holy Trinity Monastery (0,5 km)
St. Nikolaos Anapafsas Monastery (2 km)

User Reviews

Rachael Vonada (3 months ago)
This was very beautiful. I recommend taking a tour of all the monasteries at Meteora. It is €3 to go into each one ~6. Dress in long pants and a shirt with short/long sleeves.
Tina Sobol (3 months ago)
Loved our experience!!! all Orthodox Christians should visit this Amazing Monastery. The Sisters were all so kind ❤
Sergey Poleff (4 months ago)
The must. Easy to reach by car. Last 5-10 minutes before closing are the best time to enjoy the tranquility and peacefulness of the place because all tourists groups already leave at this time.
David Tsani (4 months ago)
A must visit once in a lifetime. The view is breathtaking!!
K. Honan (5 months ago)
Bring long trousers and shirt if male, cover your shoulders and use one of their sarong skirts if female. If you’re a guy and wearing shorts the nuns don’t like you trying to use one of the sarong skirts to cover your shorts. It costs around €3 to enter and there is a small museum and a shop which feels a little... strange to have in a holy place. Moneylenders, anyone? The view is nice, but can easily be obtained standing anywhere on the range, the real appeal is seeing inside a monastery that was abandoned by the monks and then taken over by nuns.
Powered by Google

Featured Historic Landmarks, Sites & Buildings

Must-see historic sighs in Luxembourg
Photo from Flickr, copyright Alexxx1979

Historic Site of the week

Church of the Savior on Blood

The Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood is one of the main sights of St. Petersburg. The church was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated and was dedicated in his memory. Construction began in 1883 under Alexander III, as a memorial to his father, Alexander II. Work progressed slowly and was finally completed during the reign of Nicholas II in 1907. Funding was provided by the Imperial family with the support of many private donors.

Architecturally, the Cathedral differs from St. Petersburg's other structures. The city's architecture is predominantly Baroque and Neoclassical, but the Savior on Blood harks back to medieval Russian architecture in the spirit of romantic nationalism. It intentionally resembles the 17th-century Yaroslavl churches and the celebrated St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow.

The Church contains over 7500 square metres of mosaics — according to its restorers, more than any other church in the world. The interior was designed by some of the most celebrated Russian artists of the day — including Viktor Vasnetsov, Mikhail Nesterov and Mikhail Vrubel — but the church's chief architect, Alfred Alexandrovich Parland, was relatively little-known (born in St. Petersburg in 1842 in a Baltic-German Lutheran family). Perhaps not surprisingly, the Church's construction ran well over budget, having been estimated at 3.6 million roubles but ending up costing over 4.6 million. The walls and ceilings inside the Church are completely covered in intricately detailed mosaics — the main pictures being biblical scenes or figures — but with very fine patterned borders setting off each picture.

In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the church was ransacked and looted, badly damaging its interior. The Soviet government closed the church in the early 1930s. During the Second World War when many people were starving due to the Siege of Leningrad by Nazi German military forces, the church was used as a temporary morgue for those who died in combat and from starvation and illness. The church suffered significant damage. After the war, it was used as a warehouse for vegetables, leading to the sardonic name of Saviour on Potatoes.

In July 1970, management of the Church passed to Saint Isaac's Cathedral (then used as a highly profitable museum) and proceeds from the Cathedral were funneled back into restoring the Church. It was reopened in August 1997, after 27 years of restoration, but has not been reconsecrated and does not function as a full-time place of worship; it is a Museum of Mosaics. Even before the Revolution it never functioned as a public place of worship; having been dedicated exclusively to the memory of the assassinated tsar, the only services were panikhidas (memorial services). The Church is now one of the main tourist attractions in St. Petersburg.

Map Top Sights Tags Historical Periods City Guides About Us Sign Up Upload new site
© 2019 SpottingHistory.com. All rights reserved.