Monastery of Agios Nikolaos, Badovas

At the edge of Meteora, at the gorge that separates Kastraki from Kalabaka, through the steep rock emerges the monastery of Agios Nikolaos Kofinas or Badovas, as it has been called since the 19th century. it is located on the side of Kastraki, on the northern side of Badova rock, which took its name from the monastery.

The monastery was founded in the 14th century, at a location where previously probably was a hermitage, and is mentioned in documents that deal with Meteora in the 14th, 16th and 17th century. According to the descriptions of travellers, in the middle of the 19th century it was abandoned, but sometime later, as testified by inscriptions and narrations, it was renovated. Initially, in 1876, with the assistance of monk Ignatius, who funded the painting of the icons of the catholicon in 1881, and later, in 1893, from the first nun in Meteora, Eugenia. In 1943, while it was already in ruins, the monastery was destroyed by a bombardment, apart from the catholicon, which survived because it was carved in the rock. Recently the church and the cells were restored with the expenses of the monastery of Agia Triada, and new wall paintings were made in the church by the painter Emmanuel Zaharioudakis, in 2001.

The catholicon is carved in a cave in the rock, at the fifth level, where one can reach through the labyrinthine cavities of the rock. At the altar area survive the old wall paintings if the 19th century, while at the other parts of the church the decoration is modern, as well as the austere wooden screen and the sacred vessels. At the narrow area outside the small church there is a large shaped balcony. On other levels of the rock there is a cistern, cells, auxiliary areas and small balconies.

Nowadays, the monastery is the metochi of the Monastery of Agia Triada in Meteora and celebrates on the 20th of March, the day of celebration of the translation of the relics of Agios Nikolaos of Myra.