Greece travel: Meteora Monasteries Page 2
Originally the access
was by means of long ladders which could be withdrawn upward to thwart unwelcome
guests, or by
means of baskets or nets on rope that were drawn up with winches mounted in towers
high above (called 'vrizonia').
Travellers reported that the ropes were replaced only after breaking-something that gives one pause for thought. Steps were cut into the rock faces during the 1920s, and in present times a modern road makes access for visitors effortless, but rather ruins the solitude and isolation that this place had for almost a millennium. A small numbers of monks and nuns now greet visitors.
During the
late 10th century, hermits lived in caves in these rocks, and later,
in the 14th century, when Thessaly was
invaded by Serbs and brigands also presented a threat to them, the hermits began to
group together in monasteries, the
first of which was founded by St. Athanasios, a monk from Mt Athos,
who established the Great Meteoron Monastery together with
nine other monks, choosing an almost inaccessible site for the monastery, which was
financially endowed by the Orthodox
Serbian conquerors of Thessaly.
Legend had it that St Athanasius flew up to the top of the rock on the back of an eagle. One of the monks who joined the monastery was of the royal family of the Paleologi (Ioannis, in 1371), and who refused the throne of Serbia for the monastic life in Meteora, hence encouraging some the endowments given to the monasteries, which flourished during the 15th and 16th centuries, with frescoes and icons adorning them.
These were created by some of the finest artists of the times, including the Cretan monk Theophanes and his followers, who also contributed their works to Mt Athos. During the Turkish conquest the monasteries became asylums for refugees. It was during the reign of Ottoman sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-66) that Meteora reached its zenith, with 24 rocks topped with monasteries and hermitages, deriving wealth from Wallachia and Moldavia as well as from surrounding Thessaly. During their five centuries, various disputes and power struggles arose over precedence among the monasteries.
