The Great Meteoron stands on the Broad Rock (Platys Lithos), a sandstone pillar about 615 meters above sea level and some 420 meters above the ground. It is the oldest and largest of the monasteries of Meteora, and its foundation marks the beginning of organized monastic life on these rocks.
Around the middle of the fourteenth century, Athanasios Koinovitis, a monk from Mount Athos, climbed the rock and raised the first structures on it. He named the pinnacle Meteoron, a name that later extended to the whole group. His first church was dedicated to the Virgin; the Church of the Transfiguration, which gave the monastery its present name, came afterwards.
His successor and second founder was Ioasaph, formerly John Uroš, a Serbian ruler who renounced his title and took monastic vows here in 1373. He rebuilt the church in 1387–88 and added cells, a hospital and a cistern. After his death in 1422, the community went through a period of disorder and decline.
The katholikon was built in stages. The sanctuary is the old fourteenth-century church, painted in 1483. The nave and narthex were added in 1544–45, and their frescoes date from 1552, in a style close to the Cretan School, with the painter’s identity still debated. The monastery reached its height in the sixteenth century.
Access was deliberately difficult. Until the 1920s, the summit could be reached only by removable ladders or by a net hauled up with a windlass. A tower and a wooden ladder were built with funds from Neagoe Basarab, ruler of Wallachia, and steps cut into the rock in the 1920s replaced the older methods.
Of the 24 monasteries built at Meteora, six remain, and the Great Meteoron is among them, still home to a monastic community and to a collection of icons, relics and manuscripts. The site has been on the UNESCO World Heritage List since 1988.
Meteora, Thessaly, Greece
Camera: Canon EOS 77D / 9000D
Lens: Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM
Capture Information:
Focal Length: 12.0 mm
Shutter Speed: 1/125
Aperture: f/5.0
ISO: 100
Photo Taken: May 08, 2026
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