⭐ Travel Guide for Island Crete ⛵, Greece❗

The arrival of Saint John the Hermit in Crete of the Early Christian Times was the beginning of a great ascetic tradition that continues to the present day. Hundreds of hermits secluded in the most remote parts of the island, forming ascetic communities that later evolved to thriving monasteries. Hundreds of countryside monasteries, most of which don't operate today, are dispersed throughout the island.

A special sample of hermitage is the Monastery Katholiko at Akrotiri Cape in the caves of which hermits lived their monastic life away, from worldly pleasures. Equally important were the religious sites of the secluded peninsulas Gramvousa and Rodopos, where several small monasteries developed.

The greatest hermitage of all was the naturally isolated, and impassable range of Asterousia in southern Heraklion. Hundreds of caves from Saint Nikitas to Cape Lithino still host hermits. Relations between them were so limited that in Agiofarago and Martsalo they gathered only once a year, in cave Goumenospilio and counted how many of them survived each year.

In eastern Crete, the north province of Mirabello is the largest field of asceticism with dozens of small monastic establishments. Here hermits built small monasteries, where they usually lived alone.

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Chrysopigi monastery at Pirgou

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The monastery of Chrysopigi is built in a wooded ravine with plane trees by the village Pirgou but now does not operate. A spring is located in the courtyard of the monastery. Next to the church there are the remains of winepress and olive mill.

Panagia Church at Kato Astraki

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The Church of Panagia (Our Lady) at the ruined village of Kato Astraki is a single-aisled 16th century church which bears traces of frescoes. Also on the west side there is a coat of arms depicting a double-headed eagle with the date 1555. Inside the church we see a tomb with a coat of arms on it (possibly from Kallergis family).

Saint Demetrius monastery at Achendrias

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From the Byzantine monastery still stands the church of Agios Dimitrios (Saint Demetrius) with very old frescoes. In the churchyard there are the remains of the monk cells.

Church of Michael Archangel at Kavalariana

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The church of Archangel Michael is very simple exterior as almost all the churches of West Crete. However, inside the church the scenery changes dramatically by the rich frescoes covering every wall of the temple. The frescoes of the church are work of the most famous painter of the Venetian Era in West Crete, Ioannis Pagomenos

Panagia Karydakiani monastery

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Here we meet the ruins of Panagia nunnery at position Karydaki. It was a two-aisled church with a transverse narthex. From a spring next to this monastery, the famous Morosini fountain in Candia (now Heraklion’s Morosini fountain at Lions square) was watered after running through a giant aqueduct system of that era.

Church of Panagia at Therisso

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The church of Panagia at Therisso is located below the huge tree of the village square and next to the statue of Eleftherios Venizelos. In the area there is the tomb of the hero Stephen Chalis, a chieftain of the period 1820-1822, who was killed in battle at position Aliakes, against the Turks, on July 25, 1822.

Church of Saint Marina at Halepa monastery

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300m away from the monastery of Halepa there is the church of Agia Marina with old frescoes. The church bears the coat of arms of the family Kallergis, one of the most important families of the Venetian period, implying that the region was one of their fiefdoms.

Saint Minas monastery at Aposami

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About one kilometer southeast of the village Skalani, Heraklion Province, at the position Aposami survives today the medieval monastery of St. Minas. Built at a very fertile area amid vineyards and olive groves endures until today the fate of abandonment and desolation as so many unknown treasures and monuments of Cretan countryside.

Asceticism

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