East of Athens on the western slope of Mount Imittos, safely hidden from prying eyes behind a high stone fence, is an ancient Orthodox shrine, the Kesariani Monastery.
The Kesariani Monastery is believed to have been founded in the 11th century, but the exact date is not known. After the Fourth Crusade, the Kesariani Monastery, unlike many other churches and monasteries, remained in the ownership of the Orthodox Church. The monastery did not cease to exist in 1458, when Attica came under the control of the Ottoman Empire. On the contrary, the monastery flourished, and in 1678, by decision of Patriarch Dionysius IV of Constantinople, it received the status of a stauropy. However, a little over 100 years passed, and Patriarch Neophytos VII of Constantinople, by his decree, denied the privileges of the monastery, and it was again under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan of Athens. Over time, the monastery fell into disrepair and was abandoned around 1855.
Throughout the centuries, the Kesariani Monastery was an important religious, cultural and educational centre, and today it is rightly considered one of the most interesting architectural monuments of medieval Greece. The church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the catholicon of the monastery, built at the end of the 11th century, is undoubtedly worthy of special attention. The structure is a cross-domed temple, the dome of which rests on four Ionic columns left from the ancient sanctuary that existed here in ancient times. The narthex of the kafolikon was built already in the 17th century, and the chapel of St Anthony belongs to the same period. The Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary is decorated with magnificent wall paintings dating back to the 17th-18th centuries. The monks' cells, kitchen and refectory from the Turkish period are well preserved, as well as a bathhouse built at the end of the 11th and beginning of the 12th century, where an olive press was located during Ottoman rule, and an ancient marble fountain decorated in the form of a ram's head, the water from which is said to cure infertility.
