Evangelistria Monastery

Department Archive
Collection Byzantine Research Fund
Reference No. BRF/02/01/16/049
Level Item
Place Skopelos
Dates before 1913/1907?
Donor/Creator Wace, Mr Alan John Bayard
Scope and Content The gilded templon. This is a Hellenic Society photograph (H.S. 2865). It is initialed (A.J.B.W.) and annotated in pencil at the back.
Further information Skopelos is the second largest island in the Sporades group. The island was inhabited as early as the Minoan period. It fell to the Venetians after 1204 and administratively belonged to the Duchy of Naxos but was recaptured by the Byzantines about seventy years later. Around 120 Byzantine and post-Byzantine churches survive on the island. Hagios Athanasios, located close to the Venetian castle, is one of the oldest: the church was founded on the ruins of an ancient temple in the 9th or the 11th c. It served as the cathedral of the Kastro and during the 17th c. received an elaborate fresco decoration.

The Monastery of the Evangelistria is located on a remote part of the island. An inscription dated to the first decades of the 18th c. refers to the Dapontes family, patrons of the monastic complex. Chapels, the refectory and other auxiliary monastic buildings still survive within the walls. Worth noting is the gilded templon of the katholikon.
Related records [BSA SPHS 01/1047.2865], Skopelos (town), Screen from the Monastery of Evangelistria, 1905