Visit to Holy Archangels Monastery

After Liturgy and coffee on Sunday, we decided to go on a little excursion with Kalliopi and her family. So we headed to Holy Archangels Monastery, which I had visited once before with our parish's monthly monastery field trip and liked very much.

The monastery originally dates to the 12th century, but was largely destroyed in 1310, probably by Catalan pirates. It was rebuilt, with the help of monks from Mt. Athos, who were probably escaping the hesychast disputes on Athos in the 14th century. Above is the oldest part of the monastery, the original chapel, with hand-carved iconostasis from about 1770. The wonderworking icon of the Archangel Michael dates to the monastery's beginning around the 12th century.

Here Fr. Joseph explored a new side chapel. The impressive ceiling is done in the traditional Greek style.

Here are the kids and Paul's godfather Paris checking out the real swords that have been left as "tamata" from grateful believers to the Archangel Michael.

Fr. Joseph and I examining the old frescos.

It happened that it was also the name day of the monastery's abbess, Nikodimi. So they invited us to stay for some festivities, which included the nuns performing various hymns and popular religious songs for the abbess.

Here is Justin with his father-in-law, Dimitris, and his two children, sitting in the monastery's courtyard.