Monastery of Isodia of Theotokos or Myrtia (Monastery of Panagia Faneromeni)

At a beautiful location next to Lake Trichonida, in the middle of the route from Agrinio to Thermo, is the Monastery of Isodia of Theotokos or Panagia Faneromeni, known as Monastery of Myrtia, a name that is used at least from the 17th century.

It seems that its core was created in the beginning of the 12th century when the first small church was built, and in the end of the 15th or the beginning of the 16th century it was expanded. In its long history it was connected with important artists that worked in its decoration and with men of letters that used its facilities, such as Cosmas of Aetolia, who lived here for a short period. It possessed excellent library and, according to tradition, at a crypt a underground school operated during the Turkish Occupation. In 1835, when all the area’s monasteries were dissolved, it remained as the monastery centre of Trichonida. In 1943 it was set in fire by the German troops and the cell complexes were destroyed. They were restored in the 1990s.

Nowadays, the monastery complex is surrounded by tall buildings with cells and auxiliary areas and at its centre stands the catholicon. The church has undergone numerous stages until reaching its present-day form. In the 12th century it was a simple, single-aisled, barrel vaulted, decorated in its interior with wall paintings from which very few fragments remain, while in 1491 new icons were painted by Xenos Digenis from Mouchli in the Peloponnese. In the 16th century a new, larger and more carefully constructed church was built next to it, two columned cross-in-square church with a dome, and the older one was converted into the altar area. The icons in the interior of the main church were made in 1539 by an unknown but important painter, who followed the artistic tradition of northwestern Greece. In 1651 the narthex was added, where wall paintings from the beginning of the 18th century still survive, and then the chapel of Taxiarches was built, which was demolished in 1903.

Nowadays it is a men’s monastery and celebrates on the 21st of November.