Andromonastiro

Monastery of the Transfiguration of Christ

At an idyllic landscape of great natural beauty, at the settlement of Petralona, next to ancient Messini, hides the Andromonastiro, one of the most impressive monuments of Messenia, important for its particular architecture.

Its name was given so that it could stand out from the nearby monastery of Samarina, even though tradition relates its history and name with emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos, who, in order to honor Patriarch Athanasius I, who came from Androusa, offered the two monasteries to his birthplace.

The monastery was founded in the end of the 12th or the beginning of the 13th century. It had great property and contributed decisively to the Revolution of 1821, but its suffered damages by the raids of Ibrahim. It was the metochi of the monastery of Sinai from 1780 to 1929. Then its property was sold and the chirch was dedicated to monastery of Voulkano, and it still remains its metochi today.

The complex has the shape of a fortress that is surrounded by a fortification wall strengthened by two towers. One side of it is shaped by the two-storey building of the cells, which in the ground floor housed auxiliary areas and warehouses, while next to the tower is the three-storey building of the bank.

The catholicon architecturally belongs to the type of cross-in-square church with an octagonal dome supported on four columns, with tripartite narthex. The exonarthex and the bell tower are later additions.

At the interior of the church there are wall paintings of the 13th and the και του 17^ου αιώνα, as well as parts from the Byzantine sculpted screen and the opus sectile on the floor.

The church is dedicated to the Transfiguration of Christ, while the two side chapels are dedicated to Agia Aikaterini and perhaps to prophet Elijah. Under the altar area there is a spring in the form of an arched cistern, which supplied Androusa with water for centuries.

The monastery, which was in ruins for many years, has been restored by the Ministry of Culture and celebrates on the 6th August.