{"id":172356,"date":"2026-06-22T08:52:23","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T06:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/?p=172356"},"modified":"2026-06-22T08:52:23","modified_gmt":"2026-06-22T06:52:23","slug":"monastery-philosopher-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/2026\/06\/22\/monastery-philosopher-greece\/","title":{"rendered":"The Monastery of the Philosopher, One of Greece\u2019s Oldest Byzantine Sites"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Old Monastery of the Philosopher with the New Monastery in the background, Arcadia, Greece<\/a>. Credit: Wikimedia Commons Roman Klementschitz<\/a>, Wien<\/span>\u00a0–\u00a0Own work <\/span><\/span><\/span>CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Monastery of the Philosopher in Arcadia, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, is steeped in Greek history.<\/p>\n

Located on the west side of the gorge of River Lousios<\/a>, 11 km (7 miles) south of Dimitsana, in the Prefecture of Arcadia<\/a>, in the Peloponnese, it consists of two monastic complexes, one old and one new.<\/p>\n

The old Monastery of the Philosopher is the most historic and oldest monastery of Arcadia and one of the oldest Byzantine<\/a> monuments in Greece.<\/p>\n

\"Monastery
Old Monastery of the Philosopher church door. Credit: Ferengi\/Wikimedia Commons Ferengi<\/a><\/span>\u00a0–\u00a0Own work<\/span><\/span><\/span>
CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 1,050-year-old monastery<\/h2>\n

It was founded in the year 963 by Ioannis Lampardopoulos from Dimitsana, the so-called “philosopher,” who was the secretary (“Protocrite”) of Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II Phokas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The monastery took its name from the founder’s nickname. Architecturally it is characterized as cruciform, or cross-shaped.<\/p>\n

It was built inside a cave, above a steep ravine; today only a small church in the Byzantine style of the 10th century with its remarkable frescoes is preserved.<\/p>\n

It is a four-column cruciform church with an octagonal dome. Of the rest of the monastery, only a cistern and the ruins of cells and other buildings survive.<\/p>\n

According to tradition, the old monastery served as a “krifo scholio” (secret school)<\/a>, during Ottoman rule, which later developed into a great theological school that operated in the new Monastery.<\/p>\n

Many teachers, priests, monks, senior clergy, as well as leading figures of the Church attended this School.<\/p>\n

Four patriarchs of Jerusalem, two Ecumenical Patriarchs and many supreme ecclesiastical men (Gregory V, German of Old Patras) graduated from the new Monastery of the Philosopher.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The new Monastery of the Philosopher<\/h2>\n

The new Monastery of the Philosopher was founded around the mid-7th century. It is located about 400 meters from the old monastery.<\/p>\n

Its katholikon was built in 1661, and then several cells were built, but without abandoning the old monastery. The iconostasis of the katholikon is wood-carved with exceptional decoration and has icons of Cretan style attributed to painter Victor (1663).<\/p>\n

The hagiography took place in 1693, paid by “Mavroidi-pasha Farmakis” from Stemnitsa, who had converted to Islam but returned to the Christian fold during the days of Venetian rule.<\/p>\n

There is an image of the sponsor on the west side of the church in typical Oriental form with a luxurious garment and a rosary next to the icon of Saint\u00a0 Helen.<\/p>\n

Between the years 1834-1836, the monastery was dissolved by the decision of the Bavarian Duchy, on the pretext that it had less than six monks.<\/p>\n

The property was confiscated and sold to private individuals. After the dissolution, the monastery was deserted and gradually collapsed.<\/p>\n

Today it functions as a male monastery, by a royal decree signed on April 14, 1922, of the neighboring Monastery of Timios Prodromos of Stemnitsa.<\/p>\n

In 1955 it was declared a protected monument and from 1992 and on it began to be renovated under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture.<\/p>\n


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Old Monastery of the Philosopher with the New Monastery in the background, Arcadia, Greece. Credit: Wikimedia Commons Roman Klementschitz, Wien\u00a0–\u00a0Own work CC […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":172357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-172356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172356"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172358,"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172356\/revisions\/172358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/users.sch.gr\/sainis\/wp\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}