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Type: Octagon
Date: 11th century
Description:
The Monastery is situated on Iera Odos (Athens – Eleusis), from where the initiates would pass to participate in the Great Mysteries in the classical period. This fact might be the reason for the construction of the monastery in this exact position. The katholicon of the Monastery (around 1080) is built on an early Christian building dated to the 6th century. By erecting a monastery in this strategic position the first Christians hoped to attract the pagan pilgrims passing by. At the beginning of the 12th century an exonarthex was added in the form of an open portico. During the Frankish rule it was repaired by the Frankish Cisternian monks, who possessed it at the time. The church is a domed octagon. It is the greatest Byzantine monument of Attica, mainly due to its mosaics contemporary to the katholicon. These mosaics represent one of the three chief iconographic trends of the end of the 11th century, the classical one. The aristocratic figures resembling the ones in ancient Greek pots and tombstones fascinate the viewer. They cover the upper surfaces of the church and they present the 11th century dogmatic teaching of the church. On the narthex one can see the Prayer of Hagia Anna, Joseph’s blessing and the Presentation of the Virgin Mary – all representations come from the mariological circle. Moreover, the viewer can admire the Last Supper, the Washbasin and the Betrayal. In the main church one can see the Nativity, the Christening, the Palm Sunday, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection, the Metamorphosis and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary on the conch of the altar, the Christ on the dome along with a number of saints, bishops and prophets captivate the viewer with their symmetry, their restrained gestures and the plasticity in the pleats of the clothes. All these characteristics place these mosaics among the masterpieces of the middle Byzantine art. The small paved yard in the south of the church is dated after 1458, when the Greek monks returned after the Frankish rule, when the monastery was captured by Frankish monks who used it as a cemetery of the Catalan Dukes of Athens. Besides, in the courtyard one can find marble sarcophagi, where some of these Dukes have been buried. Under the church there is also a crypt, where burials took place. In the north of the katholicon there are the remnants of the Byzantine refectory, contemporary of the church (1080 – 1100 A.D.) The Monastery is mentioned in the sources (Vita of Hosios Meletios the Younger, bulls).
Millet G., Le Monastere de Daphni, Paris 1899.