The small church built in the rock, together with the small monastic dwellings of the first ninth-century monks (cave-Iike hollows that were Iater made into cells), introduce us to the first human intervention in the area which Iater became the Monastery.
It dominates the area from the highest point of the Monastery. From the moment we set foot in the church it carries us ïn a journey through time. The two Chozoviotissa Byzantine icons stand out, the historical "Chozoviotissa Lady" and the one known as "Possessor" or "the Dark-eyed Virgin Mary" ( on the iconostasis). Also the Cretan school works "Panagia the Portaitissa" (15th century ) also known as "Theotokio" (Mother of God) from Mount Athos, and the "Yiennadio's Prayer" (1619), a rare clue to the brotherliness and the exchange of monks between Hozoviotissa and Patmos Monastery during the 17th century. The name of the Monastery's founder, Alexius Comnenus, is inscribed ïn one of the silver ecclesiastical objects dated 1652. Here is also preserved the chisel of the master builder which, as a sign from the Holy Virgin was driven into the rock precisely where the Monastery should be built.

The Treasury holds a rich (in number and variety) collection of precious objects. In a suitably prepared exhibition space (due to the generous efforts of the monks, the abbot and Lila Marangou) are presented Byzantine codices and post- Byzantine manuscripts of Pergamene parchment, paper and parchment (10th to l8th century), some of which bear illuminated miniatures, sigillia with the Ecumenical Patriarchs Jeremiah II and Gabriel's seals, ecclesiatical embroideries, inscribed silver pieces, priestly garments vestments etc.

Before we leave the monks, the last untiring members left to maintain Hozoviotissa's successful course through time, we stand a while on one of the Monastery's "out of this world balconies", completely exposed to the sea's horizon... There we feel, the conviction, mature now inside us, that divinity, as an ecstatic experience, "nests" in remarkable places such as Hozoviotissa... where the perception of an endless sea is so alive that it truly reflects in the light of the Aegean sea, the infinity of the universe... « previous page

| All text by Lila Maragou© |

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