Greece - Monastery of Panagia Elona

We were driving from Leonidio through the gorge of the river Dafnon, when after numerous bends suddenly the majestic Monastery of Panagia Elona appeared. It is situated on a kind of hanging balcony on a steep reddish coloured cliff of Mount Parnon at an altitude of 650 metres.

The history of the monastery begins in the 14th century. Shepherds saw a light in an inaccessible part of the cliff. This light, according to the legend, emanated from an oil lamp lit in front of an icon of St. Panagia. The bishop commissioned two hermits from the area to settle at the site, where they then built a small monastery with two cells.

The present monastery was built in the middle of the 17th century, but it looks considerably more modern; devastating raids and fires caused that entire parts of the monastery had to be rebuilt several times. Panagia Elona played an important role in Greek War of Independence of 1821, both with money and by gathering weapons and hiding the Greek independence fighters. At the beginning of 1900 the monastery was one of the richest monasteries of the Peloponnese.
Since 1970 Panagia Elona is a nunnery; during our visit in 2017 just five nuns were still living there.

The white buildings with their cells seem to be stuck against the multicoloured rock wall (PiP1). The current church was built in 1809 (PiP2). Outside it looks quite simple, but inside it is stunningly beautiful. We were welcomed by a very friendly monk, who turned out to be a kind of keeper for the elderly nuns. He showed us around and told a lot about the religious artworks, like the sculpted wood iconostasis (PiP3) and the several icons. Among them an icon of “Our Lady Elona” (PiP4), which is believed being Apostle Luke’s work (one of the 70 icons that he painted).