The 7 most famous Virgin Marys of Pontus

A trip to the Virgin of Pontia, with photos and their History. Click on the Arrows to open the story of each of the Virgin Marys of Pontus….

Read them all!

Panagia Lalogli in Kars (Caucasus) of Pontus

Lalogli was a Greek village in the Sarikamis province of Kars (Caucasus).

The church of Panagia Lalogli was famous throughout Kars. It was located near the Greek village of Lalogli.

The Greeks of Kars Caucasus or Karslides were twice expelled from their ancestral homes. Initially, they were settled in Argyroupoli, where in 1878, they left the now inhospitable area of Pontus and settled in the area of Kars. But before leaving Argyroupoli, they took an icon of the Virgin Mary, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which they transported to their new homeland. They settled in Kars, building 74 villages. Among them, the village of Lalogli dominated due to the glorious church of the Assumption of the Virgin, as it was named Panagia of Lalogli, which was transported as an invaluable treasure from Pontus. But history repeated itself a few years later.

From 1917-1922 the Kars refugees for the second time leave their homes. With the few things they took with them, they transported to their new homeland sacred relics, such as the icon of the Virgin of Lalogli, the gold embroidered epitaph but also chants inside a trunk. The responsibility for the transport of these sacred relics to Greece rested with Pavlos Petidis of Ananias, a pious man who considered that the most valuable of all those who had to take with them was the icon of the Virgin Mary, an icon that adorns the church in Mesonisi today. Florina and has given its name to the Temple.

The inauguration of the Church took place on August 25, 1974 in an atmosphere of excitement with the participation of a large number of lay people and clergy, with the Metropolitan of Florina Prespa and Eordea, Blessed Augustinos Kantiotis.

The all-night and solemn event of that day, reminded many of the festival that took place in the village of Lalogli in honor of the Virgin Mary. The festival was very large with the participation of many Greeks, Russians and Turks from the area of Kars and Artahan, who testify that it often exceeded the festival of Panagia Soumela. The festival lasted 15 days and during which crowds of pilgrims gathered in Lalogli, who reverently embraced the image of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, asked for the protection and the roof of the Virgin Mary and made various vows. Over time the fame of the miraculous image gathered more and more pilgrims.

Text: Paraskevi K. Mavrommatis, historian-philologist.
Edited by: Konstantinos G. Pavlidis.

Sources: Archive of Konstantinos G. Pavlidis • Georgios Grigoriadis, The Pontians of the Caucasus Region of Kars-Ardahan Region, c., Thessaloniki 1957 • Savvas Kalenteridis, East Pontus, Infognomon Publishing House, Athens 2006 Karskaya Oblast), cf. Thessaloniki 1963 • Friday K. Mavrommatis, "Panagia Lalogli", event speech for the Fifteenth of August, Mesonisi 15/8/2013.

The Virgin of Garasari

At January 8 of 454, was born in Nikopolis from a rich noble family, John the Hesychast. At the age of 18 he lost his parents Egratios and Efimia, so he decided to distribute his fortune to the poor and become a monk. Thus, around 475, he built the Monastery of Panagia in a pit-cave of the rock of the Ascension, a few kilometers southeast of Nikopolis. He remained there with ten other monks, until 481, when at the age of 28 he was ordained Bishop of Cologne.

Over the centuries the monastery was deserted and only ruins remained. It took 13 centuries for a worthy successor of Agios Ioannis the Hesychast, the owner of Panagia Garasari, to appear.

In 1785, Ioannikios Thomaidis was born in the village of Hahavla, who around 1805-1810 became a monk and set a goal of his life to rebuild the monastery. Eventually he succeeded and around 1812-1815 the building was ready and he became Abbot of the Monastery.

The building complex had a ground floor and three floors and was made of hewn stone from the quarries of Koratza (north of Nikopolis).

On the ground floor were the storage rooms and a crypt. At the edge, to the left of the entrance, there was a shed with the seven bells of the monastery and carved tanks for collecting rainwater.

On the first floor was the Abbot's office, a guest house for the officials, rooms for the pilgrims, the dining room and the kitchen.

On the second floor were the monks' cells and the Abbey.

On the third floor was the temple of the Monastery, with a dome that reached to the roof of the cave. In front there was a large balcony with railings and in the back were the sanctuaries and the small church of Agia Anna.

The ascent to the monastery started from the base of the rock of the Ascension (which is 800 meters high) with a winding path. At the second turn of the path there was a two-storey inn with a stable and barn for the animals. In the third turn was the chapel of Agia Varvara and immediately after, through a arduous uphill, you reached the propylaea of the Monastery. To reach the temple, you had to climb sixty steps.

Over the years, the fame of the Monastery spread throughout Pontus and every August XNUMX, thousands of pilgrims arrived for its sake. The attendance and the festival started two or three days before the fifteenth of August and lasted until the nine days of the Virgin Mary. Of course, pilgrims came throughout the year, as they believed that the Virgin of Garasari cured various diseases.

In the first years the Monastery did not have real estate, until the inhabitants of Kaya-tipi (logically at the urging of the Abbot Ioannikios) donated five thousand acres of land to the monastery, on the condition that they would exploit them themselves and pay rent for this use.

The property of the Monastery increased in the following years, after the following incident. Abbot Ioannikios had spiritual gifts, he was also robust and with all his activity he enjoyed respect from Christians and Muslims, who in fact had given him the nickname Kiose Karapas.

Ioannikos therefore had a close relationship with the Turkish tsiflika of Agoutmous, Pektes-bey. When they were both in Constantinople in 1814, Pektes-bey beat the pregnant woman of another Turkish official, causing her to miscarry and die. Sultan Hamit ordered the culprit arrested and executed.

Knowing that Bektes-bey was in the Patriarchate, Pektes-bey asked for his help and the Abbot asked Patriarch Joachim to mediate in Hamit. The Patriarch visited the Sultan and managed to persuade him to pardon Pektes-bey.

Thus, the Turkish tsiflikas escaped and in order to thank Ioannikios, he donated his tsifliks to Tsivi-tutmaz and Elektzi-touzi to the monastery. In this way the estates of the Monastery increased to ten thousand acres and reached the river Lykos.

From the exploitation and rent of the estates, the monastery had income that it used for its operation and the hospitality of the pilgrims.

On June 25, 1924 the monks left together with the other inhabitants of Nikopolis, taking with them the sacred relics of the Monastery. Some of these relics ended up in the sanctuary of the Peaks of Kavala and most in the church of Panagouda, in the district of Agia Paraskevi in Kavala.

The local Muslims, believing that there were hidden treasures, dug up and almost completely destroyed the monastery. Today the facade of the Monastery stands in front of us on the hill of the Ascension, injured and left to its fate, gazing at the valley up to Soussehri, an undeniable witness of centuries of glorious history of the Christian inhabitants of Nikopolis.

NOTE: The Abbot Ioannikios Thomaidis who, after 13 centuries from its foundation, "resurrected" the Virgin of Garasari and made her a Pampontic pilgrimage, was from the village of Hahavla.

Panagia Theoskepastos in Trabzon

The carved church of Panagia Theoskepastou, an institution that was closely associated with the family of Alexios III the Great Komnenos (1349-1390), bears the stamp of its burial function, as is the case with other important ecclesiastical institutions of Trabzon.

The church belongs to a wider monastery complex, located on the slopes of Mount Mithrion, halfway between the port and the citadel of Trabzon. The walled area, in addition to the central cave church, includes cells and smaller temples and houses burial sites.

The role of the family of Megali Komnenos and its relationship with the monument was imprinted in a founding representation on a wall of the church depicting Alexios III the Great Komnenos, his wife Theodora and his mother Irene.

The latter, in fact, was represented as the main sponsor, as it held a dummy of the temple, an element that is among the usual iconographic features of the Byzantine patron depictions.

The most interesting of the tombs is certainly that of Despot Andronikos, the illegitimate son of Alexios III the Great Komnenos, not because of his formation but because of the circumstances of his death. According to sources at the time, Andronikos was killed very young, falling from a window of the palace in Trabzon and was buried in the narthex of Theoskepastos Monastery. This fact, as well as the young age of the deceased, is mentioned in the tomb inscription of Theoskepastos:

"But what are we going to do from here? The inscription, after all, idealizes the character and personality of the undefeated young man and emphasizes his royal origin, perhaps in an attempt to integrate him into the imperial dynasty: son of Alexios / emperor friend and gifts / in spite of which he dominates to the degree of despot / […] / the great Komnenanthis Andronikos ”.

All this effort could be due to the personal initiative and activity of the emperor, in order to ensure the backwardness of his beloved, apparently, son. In the monastery are also the tombs of the two legal children of Alexios III, Manuel III and Alexios IV the Great Komnenos, but we do not have information about the relevant burial inscriptions.

Unfortunately, all of the above - portraits, accompanying inscriptions identifying the figures, tombstone inscription - are material permanently lost for modern research. In 1843, as part of a renovation of the monument, extensive interventions were made: the meter burial epigram of Andronikos was replaced by a more literate one and the figures of the founders were repainted, among which Andronikos "appeared", while on the contrary E "disappeared". Thus, the description of the first phase of the monument is based on testimonies -photographs, drawings, imprints- of scholars-travelers of the 19th century.

The frescoes of the church also belong to this initial phase, which according to the connected persons dates back to the second half of the 14th century. Scholars, since the beginning of the 20th century, note the rigor of the forms and the simplified rendering of the architectures. The state of the murals today does not allow the examination of this visual ensemble.

Panagia Kremasti

The monastery of Panagia Kremasti, whose name the Pontian Association of Evosmos is honored to bear, belonged as absolute property to the Monastery of Agios Ioannis Vazelonas, first as a hermitage, then as a metochi and from about 1760 as a nunnery.

It was located in the area of Matsouka, very close to the village of Thersa, and was celebrated on September 8, the birthday of the Most Holy Theotokos. The monastery of Theotokos Kremasti owed its name to the 150-meter-high cliff, from the quay of which hung over the Rector river.

According to another version, the monastery was named so, because thousands of Christians in the area were hanged from its rock, victims of the persecution of the bloodthirsty local agades of the house of the Egyptians.

The description of the monastery by the historian and abbot of the Vazelona Monastery, K. Panareto Topalidis, in the year 1909 is extremely interesting. , the role of the abbess and the abbesses of the Monastery of Vazelona.

We are also informed of the claim of the nunnery from the above exarchic monastery and the short-lived metropolis of Rodopolis and its final adjudication in the Vazelona Monastery in the year 1866.

We also owe to the British professor of Byzantine studies A. Bryer and his collaborators, unique photographs and blueprints, as well as important information about the condition of the nunnery in 1970.

The history of the monastery, full of asceticism, piety and sacrifice, as well as its national and religious contribution, ended abruptly and ignominiously in 1916. The nunnery of Kremasti was looted by gangs of Turkish rioters (Chets) who Zade Apti Aga, was looting the wider area of Matsouka.

The monastery, now ruined and forgotten in the mountainous Matsouka, has been "living" for 20 years now under the name of the Association of Pontians Evosmos, and much more today that the Association tries to illuminate through the research of sources the history of the monastery unknown to most.

Panagia Kremasti seems to be waiting patiently, through the study of its history, for its anecdote in Greece, at the moment of its justification, for the recognition of its invaluable offer to the Greeks of Pontus.

Holy Monastery of Panagia Soumela

A sacred place, a magical place, a place of mystery, Hellenism and Orthodoxy, a place of pain and martyrdom and an eyewitness to the great Pontian genocide.

Place of eternal pilgrimage. Even today thousands of visitors (according to the Turkish Ministry of Tourism, Panagia Soumela, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and the carved churches of Cappadocia are the first tourist destinations in Turkey) come to see this magnificent monument. Thousands of pilgrims, mostly Greeks but also Turks, come to worship.

Women in the classic Islamic headscarf patiently climb the stairs leading to the monastery and reverently worship Meriem Anna, Panagia Soumela. Greek-speaking Pontians of Turkey still sing Panagia Soumela, another element of their confused identity for many, a colossal problem for all of present-day Turkey.

The Monastery of Panagia Goumera

The old historical Monastery of Panagia Goumera from the lost homelands and specifically from the valley of Tsiti, in the province of Chaldia of Arda from Argyroupoli of Pontos is revived today in Makrinitsa, Serres.

The Holy Monastery of Panagia Goumera did not have the fame and splendor of the historical monasteries of Trabzon (Panagia Soumela, Agios Georgios Peristereotas and Agios Ioannis Vazelonas) but it was an important center of spiritual and cultural development. At the same time, her library had many manuscripts of ancient writers and fathers of the Church (Aristotle, John Chrysostom).

Her paintings were of rare value painted in Wallachia. Until 1914 there was a boarding school with elementary, high school and lyceum. It is the year of disaster. All property is confiscated by the Turks who enter World War I on the side of the Germans.

Panagia Chrysokefalos

The "Great Church" of Trabzon and perhaps the most important church of the empire, Panagia Chrysokefalos, is located in the middle of the city, in the center of a larger building complex.

Tradition attributes the name "Chrysokefalos" either to the bronze covering of the slabs of the dome of the temple, which from afar looked like gold, or to the existence in it of an image of the Virgin with a corresponding gold plating. However, because the church is mentioned in the sources under the name "Chrysokefalos" from the 11th century, while the dome dates back to the 12th or even the 14th century, the version mentioned in the image should be considered more probable.

This is an icon of Panagia Vrefokratousa that existed in the temple, perhaps attached to a pillar. We know from a 14th century literary source that, after the successful confrontation of the Turkish attack on the city in 1223, the icon was adorned by the emperor Andronikos I Gidonas with "precious stones and brilliant pearls", "I want to award the images to the Virgin […] ”.

The same emperor also donated a luxuriously decorated gospel to the temple. It is even testified that Andronikos had spent in Chrysokefalos the anxious night before the positive outcome of the match. The sources of the time brilliantly describe the criticality of the situation and the invocation of divine help by the emperor:

It is a pity that today the impressive, as it seems, interior decoration of this extremely important temple has not been saved.