It is a monastic complex, which was known under the name of “Paliomonastiro”. The excavated church falls under the category of the composite cruciform type with four columns. Three apses are shaped on its east side, out of which the middle one, which is also the largest is three-sided in its exterior, while the other two are sidelong. Multicolored marble plates and marble inlays used to cover the floors of the church. The sculpted decoration of the church was important, out of which were collected icon screen small pillars, marble window frames, window columns, parts of cornices and fragments of icon screen parapet slaps. The church is dated to the end of the 12th century or the beginning of the 13th century.
Special characteristics
Not only the size, but also the decoration and the architectural type of the church, which is rare in Thessaly, indicate that it is a very important building, definitely the most important out of the ones identified so far on the east Mt Kissavos (which was referred to in the Byzantine sources as the Mountain of Cells), after the monastery of St Dimitrios in Stomio. |