On the southwestern coast of Athos, the fortress-monastery has rooted its foundations on a narrow and steep rock, 80 meters high. It is located between the monasteries of Grigoriou and Saint Paul. The monastery, also known as “New Petra,” was founded between 1356 and 1366 by St. Dionysius from Koresos in Macedonia. Through the intervention of his brother, who was the Metropolitan of Trebizond, he gained the support of Emperor Alexios III Komnenos, as evidenced by the exceptional golden bull of 1374, bearing the image of the emperor and his wife Theodora.
The monastery’s history was marked by a devastating fire in 1535, but it quickly rose again and took on the architectural form of a multi-level building with terraces on wooden balconies. The Moldavian princes Petros Dares, Răduț and Neagoe Vassara, Alexandros Lepousneanu financed the construction of the church, the wings, the tower, and the aqueduct. The history records the destructive earthquakes of 1585 and 1765.
After the fire, the lead-covered katholikon, dedicated to the Nativity of the Forerunner, was rebuilt. It is characterized by an interesting architectural peculiarity, as it has two spaces with small domes that house the prothesis and the diakonikon, on either side of the central apse of the altar. It was frescoed in 1547 by the Cretan iconographer Tzortzis and has a gilded iconostasis dating back to the early 19th century. In the portico formed in front of the entrance to the monastery’s refectory, the frescoes of 1603 depicting the Apocalypse are considered the oldest complete expression of the theme in Orthodox iconography.
Dionysiou ranks fifth in the hierarchy of monasteries, and among its relics, it houses the sacred relic of the right hand of the Forerunner and a relief depiction of the Crucifixion made of ivory, whose dating to the 10th century is disputed by experts.
Text: Dr. Antonios G. Dikaios / Theologian – Environmentalist.
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