The monastery as it was when the new sisterhood moved in, in early 1930s

 

The monastery as it was when the new sisterhood moved in, in early 1930s

LOCATION AND HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE MONASTERY 

The Monastery of St Hierotheus & Kyparissiotissa, located on the foothills of Mt. Geraneia, is 8 km away from the ancient city of Megara. It's from Nisaea, the Ancient port of Megara, where Prince Byzas set sail to found Byzantium, 667 BC. About 1000 years later, in 324 AD, Byzantium gave its place Constantinople.

 

he monastery church dates back to the 11th century. It is built next to the tomb of St Hierotheus, the Thesmothete (the law-maker), the first bishop of Athens, who was succeeded by Dionysius the Areopagite. Both of them ought to be from noble and well-educated families. The judges of the Supreme Court of Athens must have previously served as one of the nine thesmothetes, meaning law-makers. 

The mathematical theorema
on the dogma of the Holy Trinity 

Hierotheus had Hellenistic education, was a Platonic philosopher, and was inducted to the Eleusinian Mysteries. The holy city of Eleusina is halfway between Athens and Megara. He also wrote several essays that don't survive. Among those, the "Outlines of Theology" and "Hymns of Love." However, we do know about him thanks to the work of Dionysius, "Book of Saint Hierotheus." Nonetheless, in a Codex treasured in the Monastery of the Great Lavra, Mt Athos, we may find one mathematical, philosophical writing, attributed to him: "Theorema of saint Hierotheus, bishop of Athens, on the Holy Trinity.

The Theorema consists of a geometrical diagram (according to the Hellenistic philosophical mindset) that combines philosophical ideas with mathematics. This practice faded out after the 3rd century AD, and this is a strong indication that the Theorema was not written at a later time nor falsely attributed to Hierotheus. On the contrary, it suggests influences from Xenocrates of Chalcedon and his School.

The Dormition of the Virgin Mary, according to John of Damascus (675-749). St Paul, St Hierotheus of Athens and St Dionysius the Areopagite among the 11 apostles

Hierotheus was present at the funeral of the Holy Virgin Mary. There, he was taken by the Holy Spirit and addressed hymns to the Theotokos. There is a possibility that those hymns were the ground on which later hymnographers composed their own to the Theotokos.

The ancient road that connected Athens to Eleusis, Megara with Corinth, via Tripodiscus. Its vicinity with Athens, Eleusis and Megara and its philosophical School would make Tripodiscus an ideal location for a Christian philosopher and missionary. 

Upon his return to Athens, Hierotheus must have given his office to Dionysius. He retreated to Mt Geraneia, close to the ancient Megarian settlement of Tripodiscus, where they worshipped God Apollo. Tripodiscus was on the main road that led from Athens, Eleusis, and Megara to Corinth, while the coastal road (the Scironian road) was rocky, narrow, and dangerous. The latter bore the name Sciron, one of the infamous robbers killed by Theseus -the mythical king of Athens. By the Ottoman era, the area had changed its name to Derveni, meaning "passage" in Turkish. Quite possibly, this was the road that Saint Paul took to get to Corinth. Later he sailed back to Syria from the Corinthian port of Kenchree on the Saronic coast. 

The circled dot was used by 
the Pythagoreans and later
Greeks to represent the first 
metaphysical being,
the Monad or The Absolute

Megara was known for its Megarian School of philosophy, founded by Euclid of Megara, one of Socrates' pupils, and flourished in the 4th century BC. Its ethical teachings were derived from Socrates. They recognized one single Good, combined with the Eleatic doctrine of Unity. The Eleatic idea of "The One", was identified with the Socratic "Form of the Good." Euclides regarded the opposite of Good as non-existent. What matters is the moral good and the will of the person to strive towards it. The original Being initially emanates or throws out the nous, which is a perfect image of the One and the archetype of all existing things.

Some of Euclid's successors developed logic to such an extent that they became a separate school, known as the Dialectical school. Euclid's successors were Ichthyas (mid 4th century BC) and Stilpo (late 4th century BC), while a few more of his students were  Eubulides of Miletus and Clinomachus of Thurii. 

It is obvious that it mustn't have been hard for a philosopher as Hierotheus to understand the verse:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."

Cell-caves transformed into churches

And vise versa: His rhetorical skills and knowledge of philosophy would make him the right person to approach other ancient philosophers and to perceive and analyze the Christian dogmas. For example, the word Logos (In the beginning was the Logos) cannot be successfully rendered as word. "word" is a lot more than a text or a speech. It also means reason, rationality, logic. 

The cell-caves in a short distance around the monastery (now transformed into chapels name after various desert fathers) are a strong indication that this location had become a center of asceticism when Hierotheus retreated here, preaching and baptizing people. It could also be sort of a Christian philosophical school, like the one founded by Pantainos in Alexandria, in 180 AD, whose grandfather, also Pantainos, sponsored in 102 AD the construction of the second-largest Library of Athens, in the Ancient Agora. 

Kellia, laurai at Qasr el-Izeila.
An extended monastic community in Egypt

The idea that monasticism was an exclusively Christian practice is wrong. The Pythagorean "monastic" communities influenced Christian philosophy and theology. According to Titus Flavius Josephus, it also influenced the Jewish Essenes. The oldest reference of the word "monastery" is by Philo of Alexandria when referring to the Pythagorean communities. They would also call such community "homeacoeion" (homo+acouo = same acoustic) - while the monks "therapeutes" (= therapists). Besides Jesus Himself, quite a few biblical figures would spend time in isolation: Prophet Elijah, St John the Forerunner, St John the Theologian in Patmos, St Andrew -in various caves. As in Therme (Loutraki) by the Isthmus of Corinth, etc.

Hierotheus was buried by his disciples next to the wall of the very first chapel, according to the early Christian practice to build churches next to or above the tombs of saints (e.g., St George's Tomb in Lod, Israel). 

SECOND PERIOD 

Alaric and the Visigoths ravaged Megara was in 396 AD. Due to its vicinity to the Corinthian Gulf, it also suffered catastrophic earthquakes in 77, 524, 543, 551, 580 AD. The worse of all being in 856 -one of the most destructive in the Mediterranean. The early Christian constructions did not survive. The place remained deserted and neglected until St. Meletios the New (1035-1105 AD) came in the region from Constantinople, seeking a peaceful environment for his ascetic struggles. Many monks soon followed him in the wilderness. And so he has founded a Monastery that today bears his name (Monastery of St Meletios of Oinoe). Soon the entire area turned into a monastic center with many sketes or cells. Some of Meletios' disciples moved in the caves around the byzantine ruins and the ancient Christian tomb of Megara. It is also possible that the area belonged to a byzantine nobleman who decided to rebuild the current 11th-century church over the ancient ruins.

The small Skete of the 11th century did not survive long due to the continuous raids by various invaders, as the Ottomans c.1456. It must be then that the abbey got the name of the Virgin Mary Panagia Kyparissiotissa (of the Cypress tree). The legend has it that during a pirate raid, the monks climbed up on the tallest of the cypress-trees -that still surround the monastery, to hide. When the pirates left without noticing them, the monks built an arcosolium (arched recess) dedicated to the "Virgin of the Cypress-tree" as a gesture of gratitude for their salvation.

THIRD PERIOD 1738 

In 1738, a tragic incident was the cause for the third opening of the monastery and the finding of St Hierotheus' relics. And that was the Great bubonic Plague of Eastern Europe. The inhabitants of Megara and other towns would leave their homes to the mountains and the country-side. And so did a certain hieromonk named Paisios, who chose the deserted Monastery as his refuge. During his stay, Paisios saw in his dream two lamps burning over the existing unknown tomb. When he had the same vision a few more times, he decided to confess his dreams to a certain layman, named John, who had also fled Megara due to the plague. They both decided to dig the tomb, and as soon as they opened it, a fragrance came out of it. It arose from the relics.

ST HIEROTHEUS PROTECTOR AGAINST CONTEAGIOUS DISEASES

The saint's skull

Paisios couldn't tell whose relics they were. And so he prayed for days before the icon of the Virgin Mary, till he heard voices chanting the Troparion of St Hierotheus. He praised the Lord and thanked the Virgin Mary for this revelation. However, he kept it to himself, afraid to go downtown and tell the news. The saint appeared again, this time to a certain woman of Megara, urging her to visit the monastery and rebuke Paisios because he hadn't thought (or dared) to bring the holy relics to the town, and pray so that the plague would stop. And so he did. Immediately the plague was extinguished. Soon the news was spread, not only in the area but also in villages and towns and islands around Greece. In the 1830s the inhabitants of the island of Poros requested to have the saint's skull on the occasion of a local epidemic disease. 

BAVARIAN SUZERAINTY (1832-1862)

Some people claim that the Muslim Ottomans were more kind to the Christian Orthodox Church than the German Lutheran overlords of the "independent" Greek Kingdom under the Bavarian King. Maybe the young king Otto himself wasn't that bad, but the real rulers (Otto's counselors and bankers) probably did more harm to the Orthodox Church than the Turks. Especially the Regency Counselor on Religious Affairs, Georg Ludwig von Maurer. Influenced by the spirit of the so-called "Enlightenment" and the arrogant colonialist mentality, he looked down on the Orthodox Greeks as if they were a tribal idolatrous nation. 

Meanwhile, Britain and the Rothschild bank, which were underwriting the Greek loans, insisted on financial stringency from Counselor Armansperg. In 1833 they closed down 378 out of the 524 existing Monasteries under the excuse that they had less than six monks/nuns. They confiscated the monastic property, including assets and treasures that ended up in the Mint or sold by the smuggler state.

 

It wasn't only an effort of dominance over the "orthodox cult" -that they had to uproot. The German officials viewed the Orthodox as Russophile, thus friends of a country that they considered hostile or competitive. Two years earlier (1831), the first Greek governor of Greece, Ioannis Capodistrias, was assassinated - for being a Russophile - by his opponents who favored other foreign powers. The three monks of St Hierotheus Monastery were forced to move to Salamis Island and join the  Faneromeni Monastery brotherhood, founded by their compatriot from Megara, St Laurentius the New across the Salamis straights. 

FOURTH MONASTIC ERA (1930 - TODAY)

The Monastery remained closed until 1930 until a certain hieromonk, Peter Vlotildis (1889 - 1950), a refugee from Smyrna / Izmir, sought an empty monastery to move in with his spiritual daughters. Since he arrived as a refugee in Greece he had been serving as a priest in the parish of St Artemios, in Athens. After several unsuccessful efforts, two young women of the sisterhood lead Fr Peter to the right place. On the boat to the island of Salamis, they have met someone from Megara who suggested that they went to check out the abandoned Monastery of St Hierotheus. And so they did.

Soon the sisters and their spiritual father moved into the ruins and, with the assistance of many faithful, gradually managed to repair the church, reconstruct the cells and organize the Sisterhood of the Order of St Hierotheus.

We shall write about the new sisterhood and the monastery in the modern era in a separate post.

Credits to the George Alexandrou (1958-2014), journalist and scholar, whose book was finally released (2020) six years after his repose. It is a valuable source of information and inspiration.

"The Unique Saint Dionysios the Aeropagite: A meeting point bwteeen Christianity and Hellenism in the 1st Century"
Nektarios Panagopoulos Editions.