Monastery of Agios Ioannis Prodromos Karea

On the edge of a gorge on the western slope of mount Hymettus, near the ancient quarries of “Kara”, is the Monastery of Agios Ioannis Prodromos of Kareas, just a few hundreds of meters from the settlement with the same name. Regarding the origin of the name “Kareas” various views have been proposed, which relate to the name or the founder of the monastery, but none is generally accepted.

The date of the monastery’s foundation is unknown. The first indirect mention can be located in the 11th or the 12th century, at a document recording the property of a large monastery, however this dating does not seem to be confirmed by the architectural remains and the morphology of the present day buildings. Yet another testimony survives in a document of 1644, which relates to the resolving of a difference that existed between the abbots of the monastery of Kareas and the monastery of Kaisariani.

During the post Byzantine years the monastery was a stauropegic one and in the 17th century the doctor-philosopher Petros Papastamatis (Petrakis) from Dimitsana was a monk here, who was later called monk Parthenios. Parthenios was the one responsible for the renovation of the Petraki Monastery, which became the metochi of the Monastery of Kareas, but later, in 1777, the situation was reversed and the monks of the Monastery of Kareas, due to difficulties, moved to the Petraki Monastery. In the beginning of the 19th century the monastery was probably abandoned. Since 1971 it has been a women’s monastery.

No building survives from the Byzantine complex. The catholicon belongs to the type of cross-in-square church with a simple octagonal dome and on its eastern side there are three arches on the exterior, each with three sides. For the construction of the walls of the church ancient material has been used as well. At its interior, the sculpted marble screen is from the period 1985-1986 and resembles the screens of the Byzantine years.

The monastery celebrates on the 29th of August.