Monastery of Agios Nikolas Anapafsa

Near the village of Kastraki, amidst monasteries in ruins, is the elegant, multistoried monastery of Agios Nikolas Anapafsa, name that is probably related to the surname of its first founder.

The first settlement of monks on this rock must have taken place in the 14th century. Its present day catholicon was built in the beginning of the 16th century by the Metropolitan of Larissa, Agios Dionysios the merciful and the exarch of Stagon, the priest-monk Nikanoras, who are depicted at the church’s narthex. The catholicon has an irregular rectangular ground plan, and on the western side there is a spacious narthex, the “liti”, as it is called in monasteries. Its interior is decorated with excellent wall paintings, which were made in October 1527, as mentioned by an inscription that survives on the eastern wall of the narthex. It is the work of the most important painter of the “Cretan School”, Theofanis Strelitzas Bathas, whose family came from Mouchli in the Peloponnese and had settled in the end of the 15th century in Venice occupied Crete. The monk Theofanis with his sons, Symeon and Neofytos, also monks, left important icons in Thessaly and Mount Athos. The decoration of the walls at the catholicon of Monastery of Anapafsa us the first dated work of Theofanis, whose art influenced significantly the painting of the 16th century, but also the following generations of artists.

The bold architectural conception of the monastery is impressive, since due to the limited space, the complex has been developed in successive levels. The visitor initially encounters the chapel of Agios Antonios, with fragments of wall paintings, probably of the 14th century, and the crypt. On the next floor is the catholicon and on the last floor the refectory, the sacristy and the chapel of St John the Baptist.

It is a men’s monastery and it celebrates on the 6th of December.