Posts in category: Κτηριακη Συγκροτηση 3 – Παντοκρατορος

The chapels outside the Monastery are as follows:
a) St. Athanasios of Agios Oros, an old one-room, chapel with an arched roof located in front of the south wing of the Monastery at the edge of the cliff. This is one of the most significant of the original buildings, and functioned as the cemetery church until 1771. Its basement is still used today as a crypt. Inside the chapel, some of the sections of the original marble icon screen have survived, along with the inlaid marble floor.
b) Sts Onofrios and Petros of Agios Oros, located in the Seat of the same name a short distance north of the Monastery, where according to tradition, St Kallistos I, Patriarch of Konstantinople, and St Theonas, Metropolitis of Thessaloniki, lived as ascetics.
c) Great Athanasios, who according to tradition, is connected with the selection of the location for the foundation of the Monastery through a miraculous intervention by the icon of Panagia Gerontissa, as mentioned previously. One inscription has survived, confirming the renovation of the chapel in 1638.
d) St Trifon, located in the Seat of the same name, dates to the 17th century.
e) The Holy Anargyroi (i.e., 'they who serve without being paid'), located in the Seat of the same name, today serves as the cemetery church of the Monastery, and dates to 1771.
f) The Holy Apostles, located in the Seat of the same name.
g) St. Anna, which today is in ruins, is located in the Seat of the same name.

Eight chapels are located within the Monastery, and another seven outside it.
The seven chapels inside the Monastery are:

a) St. Nikolaos, located at the northern wing of the Monastery, north of the central gate. It was built in the 16th century, and renovated and decorated with frescoes in 1857, while the gilded and carved wooden icon screen dates to the 19th century.

b) The Dormition of the Virgin Mary, located inside the Cathedral and part of the northeastern section of the entrance hall. The chapel is considered to be one of the original structures at the Monastery.

c) Sts. Andreas and Ioannikios, located at the northeastern corner of the Monastery, was renovated in 1781. According to an inscription on the northern exterior wall, the Sacristans Cyrillos and Georgios sponsored both the rebuilding of this chapel and also that of the entire north wing in the same year.

d) The Blessed Archangels, which was renovated the same year as the above-mentioned chapel, is located close to the Director's office. The Cyrillos mentioned in an inscription commemorating the donor is identified as the Sacristan Cyrillos, who also financed the reconstruction of the previously-described chapel.

e) St. Georgios, originally located in the east wing, was decorated with frescoes, and had a carved wooden icon screen. It was destroyed by the fire of 1948, and rebuilt on the third floor of the north wing in 2000.

f) The Ascension, located on the fifth floor of the tower. This chapel had been destroyed during the period of pirate raids during the 16th and 17th centuries. According to tradition, the fathers of the Monastery who had taken refuge there were slaughtered. The chapel was recently renovated, together with the tower.

g) St John the Baptist, located in the west wing, where an old tower once stood. It probably stood at the top of the tower during the Byzantine period, while in 1750, when the height of the tower was truncated, the chapel was rebuilt with grants from Prior Markianos, who is portrayed as praying in the icon of St Markianos on the wood-carved icon screen. It was decorated with frescoes in 1819 by the Galatsanos brothers Makarios and Benjamin, and sponsored by Christos Hatzi of Magnesia, whose portrait appears on the north wall of the chapel.

h) St Panteleimonos, located in the tower above the gate to the Monastery.