Visit the Zygou Monastery

The ruins of the old Zygou Monastery stand in the area of Ouranoupolis, about 40 m. from the present border of Agion Oros.

The first mention of “Zygou” on the Athos Peninsula comes from a document from 942 CE. From it, we conclude that it was an important topographical point of reference in the area, but it is not specified whether it was a place, village, or monastery. In 958 CE, Osios Athonitis “goes to so-called Zygos”, where he begins practicing monastic asceticism subjecting himself to an old ascetic in the region. In 991 CE it appears that the Zygou Monastery had already been established, but the first clear reference to it comes in 996 CE. It was dedicated to Prophet Elias.

Although in the 11th century it was one of the most noteworthy Athonite monasteries, in 1199 it was already deserted and ceded, as a “metochi”, by Emperor Alexios III Angelos, to the then reestablished Hilandar Monastery. Around 1206, it appears that a Frankish lord established himself in the castle of Zygos with his soldiers, and from there he sallied and raid Agion Oros until, around 1211, with the intervention of the Pope in Rome, he was expelled from the region.

It is the sole example of a large Athonite monastery whose structure can be studied without the obstacles of subsequent construction phases and devotional uses. It is noted that the area within the walls is 1.3 acres, and the walls are fortified with 11 towers. The castle consists of at least five construction phases, all before 1211.

With the most recent excavations it was ascertained that the monastery was built on the site of preexisting installations from the 4th to the 6th centuries CE. The building complex consists of the old nexus (western), which was doubled by extending to the east. The main church is part of the extension. Construction commenced in the first half of the 11th century and the building consists of four clearly distinct construction phases. Initially, the complex four-pillar main church was erected with its narrow narthex. Its maximum external dimensions, without the apses, is 14.60X9.70 m. In the second phase, the north chapel was added with a founder’s tomb; in the third phase, the exonarthex was erected, and in the fourth, the southern single-space domed chapel and another founder’s tomb. There followed the construction of the three official tombs in contact with the church’s southern wall.

The church’s walls still stand up to a height of 2-4 meters. The marble architectural members, elaborate works, were partly looted at a very early stage and of those remaining, most are broken. The four pillars that supported the cupola are missing, but the marble diaphragm of the northern bilobed opening of the main church is still in place, almost intact.

The interior of the church was coated in finely grained pressed plaster and frescoed.

In the narthex, sections remain of the grand representation of the Annunciation and inlayed crosses, while in the alcove of the Prothesis (altar) two layers of frescoes were uncovered, with the same depiction: a full-length, front-facing hierarch, possibly Agios Nikolaos.

The floors of the church and the north chapel are decorated with elaborate marble inlays, surviving in satisfactory condition, apparently 11th-century works.

In the 16th-17th centuries, when the church was partly dilapidated, an olive mill complex was installed in the narthex. A second olive mill was installed, during the same period, in an already ruined structure in the monastery’s courtyard, but these uses of the ruins ceased long before 1858.

From the small findings of the excavations, most distinctive are three 11th-century lead stamps, book fastenings, a gold-plated silver medal with an engraved image of Agia Paraskevi, a tiny seal-medal with an Archangel engraving, glass chips from an inlayed wall mosaic, bronze needles and thimbles, knives, coins from the 11th and 12th centuries, glazed pottery and glass vessels from the same period.