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Just a short distance from Vresthena, to the
right of the road that leads to Sparta, lies the historical monastery of the
Assumption of the Virgin Mary --better known as Panaghia Vresthenitissa. The
Bishopric of Vresthena was founded after the fall of Constantinople. According
to some sources, the official residence of the bishops was in the building
that later came to house the Pilaleion School in Vresthena. But at least since
the 15th Century, some of the bishops chose to stay at the monastery instead,
which thus took the name "Episcopate". By the 17th Century, the monastery was
in bad repair and the bishops were forced to abandon it. In the ealry 18th
Century, however, the monastery was made over, and its cells were rebuilt in
1704 from the ground up by a monk named Ioakeim. This brough back Bishop
Agathaggelos to reside there once more --though Bishop Ioasaf, who followed,
retained the village of Chrysafa as the see of the bishopric.
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Marble plaque at the Monastery of Panaghia
Vresthenitissa. |
In the beginning of the 19th Century, the
monastery of the Panaghia had only three cells, stables for the animals, one
residence within the yard (which was probably the home of the Bishops) and a
spring. The monastery og Panaghia Vresthenitissa was torched and totally
destroyed by the hordes of Imbrahim Pasha in July 1826. Until the mid-1830s
the monastery remained in ruins. In 1833 a law concerning the abolition of
monatseries in Greece with less than six monks was enforced. This, in effect,
dissolved the monastery, which later suffered more damages due to a landslide.
It was finally restored for a second time in the early years of the 20th
Century, at which time several of its older frescoes were covered by
whitewash.
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Ancient marbles in the churchyard
of the monastery of the Panaghia |
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The inscription above
the bishop's see |
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The exact date when the Panaghia Vresthenitissa
was first built is not known --due to the collective destructions to the
monastery throughout the ages, but also due to the loss of the monastery's
archives when it was dissolved in 1833. The last Bishop of Vresthena,
Thedoretos II, took all his correspondence, the codicils of the monastery and
historical documents concerning the village of Vresthena with him when he
departed to Athens (where he died in 1843). All the documents have never been
recovered. Nonetheless, as with most churches in the country, the Panaghia
Vresthenitissa seems to have been built on the same location of an ancient
temple. Some of the marble of this temple has been re-used in the building of
the church. According to an inscription above the bishop's see in the church,
its founder was Bishop Nicon, who probably flourished at the end of the 16th
Century. The oldest inscirption to have been found
in the church dates from 14 April 1604.
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