I have been once to the beautiful monastery of Hosios Luckas, a great masterpiece of the late Byzantine art, one of the three Greek monasteries forming this WHS. The hermit Saint Luke the Stiriote lived here, on the western slopes of the Helicon, isolated in a landscape of olive trees, from 946 until his death in 953, among the ruins of a temple of Demeter, and built here a church dedicated to Saint Barbara (946-955); in the 10th century an another church was built for the pilgrimages of great enduring success, visiting his tomb. Since the 14th the monastery belong to the Cistercians, that dedicated the monastery to the Virgin and maintained it as it was. It was damaged by various earthquakes and by the bombardments of the Second World War. It has a large pentagonal enclosure and extends on an east-west axis bearing traces of successive additions. The monastery has many minor buildings, like the bell tower or the monks’ cells, but the main complex is really stunning. To the north-east there is the church of Theotokos, built on that of Saint Barbara. It is very different in style from the church of Katholikon, because it was reconstructed by the Cistercians, that dedicated it to the Virgin, linked it by a porch with cross vaults to the cells, built a slender octagonal drum and decorated the interior very simply, also with the floor made of nice marble slabs. The crypt of the second primitive church, that contains the tomb of Saint Luke and is decorated with nice 11th century frescoes, is now the crypt of the successive main church of Saint Luke, built in the 11th century. This is built onto the southern wall of the narthex of the Theotokos and has a passage to its esonarthex, forming with it a beautiful block of linked buildings, completed by the heavily restored (mainly in 1943) refectory, a parallel building on the southern side. The huge central volume of the dome rests on a drum pierced with sixteen windows and is supported on three sides by bays with groin vaults and inside (where is also a women’s gallery) by penditives. The church, made of stone and terracotta, has windows under pointed arches; the bema and the apse define the cross-in-square plan of the church (inspired to Saint Sophia of Istanbul). Its complex plan is unified into a harmonious and luxurious whole by the rich decoration of great extent and coherence of mosaics (over the portal of the church of the narthex, on the three apses, on the central vault, on the penditeves of the main dome, on the secondary dome, on the right side of the presbytery), frescos (on the main dome) and marble slabs and medallions of the pavement.

I liked very much the monastery because of its architecture and its mosaics. It’s absolutely worth of visit and justifies the inscription on the WHL. It’s state of conservation is very high (apart from some ruined buildings) but its authenticity have been damaged by the war destructions of buildings (refectory, bell tower…) that have been reconstructed in some cases very well, in others in a bad modern way (cells) and in others left in state of ruin. You must pay for visiting the monastery but not all the buildings are accessible inside, only the main ones. It’s quite hard to reach it. From the highway n° 1 going from Athens to Thessalonika you have to exit at Thebes and take the road n° 3 going to Lamía and at Livadía the road n° 48 going to Delphi and the road n° 29 and at Dhistomon turn on a minor road leading to the monastery.

We have also been trying for three years to visit the monastery of Daphni but it was always closed, two times for restoration works and one for an earthquake happened not much time before, so they have been very frustrating experiences. We have only seen a view of the monastery with its beautiful church (the only standing building together with the enclosure) after climbing all around the surrounding small mounds; however I can’t count it as a visited site, but I can consider visited the WHS of the monasteries because of the trip to Hosios Luckas. It is very easy to reach the monastery because it is about 100 meters from the highway A8 going from Athens to Patras. I can also say that this highway affects the integrity of the site and its surrounding landscape.

Photo: Monastery of Hosios Luckas - Church of Katholikon, Church of Theotokos