The monastery is considered one of the most important centres of Orthodox monasticism in the Balkans. According to its Typikon, it was founded in 1270 by the Athonite monk from Serres Saint Ioannikios. In the fourteenth century it was declared stavropegic and patriarchal, by imperial decree, while it was exempted from any arbitrary measure of the Ottomans. The privileges did not deter the monks from actively supporting the Greek Revolution of 1821. The leader of the independence movement in Macedonia, Emmanuel Pappas, was linked closely with the monastic community. Over the years until 1945 the monastery was gradually deserted, to be revived again in 1986 with the settling there of a sisterhood of nuns. In 2010 a major fire destroyed the archontariki, the old showroom, the refectory, the kitchen, the guesthouse and the storage spaces of the monastery. Since then, the Ministry of Culture and the monastic community have made significant efforts to rescue, conserve and restore the complex.
The Non-profit Civil Company AEGEAS, with particular sensitivity and respect towards the religious and historical value of the monastery, undertook the project to rehabilitate a listed, traditional hostelry – ‘Han’ – close to its entrance and to convert it into a modern hospitality facility. The building, known also as the house of the freedom-fighter Emmanual Pappas, is structured on three levels, of overall area 462 sq. m, and incorporates in a particularly imaginative way the bed of a small stream, as well as the water-channel of an old aqueduct. The complex is a representative specimen of traditional Macedonian architecture of the early eighteenth century and shares the same architectural vocabulary as the monastery buildings (heavy stone base of the ground floors, light superstructure of timber frame and plaster [bağdadi], sliding doors and windows of chestnut wood, covered balconies, stone roof with heavy overhanging cornices). The project was guided by a desire to preserve the spirit of a traditional Macedonian building of monasterial character for lodgings – a ‘han’ – but also to enhance the contemporary face of the new facility, excellently incorporated in the traditional shell.
