Meteora

NIKI J. TSIRONIS

Standing out from the great plain of Thessaly in northern Greece is a group of phenomenal rocks in which Christian ascetics found refuge after the 11th century. From the 14th century onwards, more than twenty monasteries were built, perched upon the rock outcrops, and large monastic communities flourished in them, so that the place was once called the second Mount Athos. Today, only six monasteries host communities, while another fifteen are uninhabited. In the Meteora monasteries, distinguished artists executed extraordinary iconographic programs (such as Theophanes’ paintings which decorate the narthex of the Monastery of St. Nicholas

Anapausas). The Great Meteoron house possesses a large number of invaluable manuscripts.