St Stephen's Monastery, Meteora

Why go

The Holy Monastery of St Stephen the Protomartyr stands on the southeastern part of the Meteora rocks, according to the Holy Metropolis of Stagoi and Meteora, whose page traces its history to an inscription of 1191/2 naming the hermit Jeremiah and names St Antonios Kantakouzinos and St Philotheos as its founders. The same page says the first church of St Stephen was built around 1350 and rebuilt in 1545, and that the present katholikon, dedicated to St Charalambos, whose relic the monastery received in the 15th century, was built in 1798. The monastery became a women's monastery in 1961 and, per the Metropolis, about thirty nuns live there; the Municipality of Meteora lists an abbess at its head. The Metropolis page says the sacristy, with manuscripts, early printed books and silver crosses, is shown in the 14th-century old refectory, which Visit Greece calls a model museum. The Municipality of Meteora lists a winter and a summer timetable and a weekly closing day for the convent; no visiting page of the convent itself was found.