HALL OF MYRIAD PATHS
Traditions present: Orthodox Christianity, Ancestor Veneration, Catholicism
Twenty places written in Greece. Each carries its history, architecture, site and orientation, festivals, and the way to get there.
Each dot is one placeHover to see its name, click to open its page
All 20 pages now have an English version.
A Greek Orthodox monastic complex perched atop sandstone rock pillars rising over 400 meters above the plain of Thessaly, where hermits settled from the 11th century and Saint Athanasios the Meteorite founded the Great Meteoron around 1340.
Photo: Ioannis Ioannidis, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The preeminent spiritual center of Eastern Orthodox monasticism on the Mount Athos peninsula (the Autonomous Monastic State of the Holy Mountain / Agion Oros, rising to 2,033 meters and revered as the Garden of the Mother of God, where the ancient Avaton law has barred women from entry for over a millennium). The Monastery of Great Lavra (Megisti Lavra) is the oldest and highest-ranking of the twenty sovereign Athonite monasteries, founded in 963 CE by Saint Athanasios the Athonite under the patronage and golden bulls (Chrysobulls) of Byzantine Emperors Nikephoros II Phokas and John I Tzimiskes, celebrated for its prototype Athonite triconch Katholikon painted in 1535 by Theophanes the Cretan, the thousand-year-old cypress of Saint Athanasios, and a library preserving 2,116 Greek manuscripts, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.
Photo: Aroche, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
An Eastern Orthodox monastery rising like a mighty grey-stone medieval fortress crowning the highest hilltop of Patmos Island (in the Dodecanese archipelago of the Aegean Sea), inseparably linked to the Cave of the Apocalypse on the hillside below where Saint John the Apostle, exiled in 95 CE under Roman Emperor Domitian, received his prophetic visions and dictated the Book of Revelation and the Fourth Gospel to his disciple Prochoros. Founded in 1088 CE by Saint Christodoulos Latrenos through a golden bull (Chrysobull) of Byzantine Emperor Alexios I Komnenos granting him the entire island of Patmos, the complex preserves 12th-century Byzantine frescoes, a renowned treasury of relics, and a library holding 33 leaves of the 6th-century purple-dyed vellum Gospel of Mark written in silver ink (Codex Petropolitanus Purpureus), inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.
Photo: Odysses, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
A Pentelic marble Doric temple crowning the limestone plateau of the Acropolis, built between 447 and 432 BCE under Pericles to honor Athena Parthenos, the patron goddess of the city-state of Athens.
Photo: Steve Swayne, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
A Macedonian Renaissance Orthodox monastery complex on the slopes of Mount Helicon in Boeotia, founded in 946 by the hermit Saint Luke of Steiris and celebrated for its 9-meter octagonal dome and eleventh-century gold mosaics.
Photo: C messier, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The supreme Panhellenic oracular sanctuary perched on the terraced southwestern slopes of Mount Parnassus in Phocis beneath the twin Phaedriades cliffs. Revered throughout antiquity as the Omphalos (Navel of the World), the sanctuary centered on the Doric Temple of Apollo where the priestess Pythia delivered prophecies atop her bronze tripod and where the quadrennial Pythian Games celebrated music, poetry, and athletics.
Photo: George E. Koronaios, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The supreme Panhellenic sanctuary of ancient Greece nestled in the sacred grove of the Altis beneath Mount Kronios at the confluence of the Alpheios and Kladeos rivers in Elis. Birthplace of the ancient Olympic Games in 776 BCE, the sanctuary centered on the canonical Doric Temple of Zeus built by Libon of Elis (470 to 456 BCE) to house Phidias's monumental gold-and-ivory statue of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Photo: Wknight94 talk, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
The premier healing sanctuary and holistic medical center of the classical Greek and Roman world, nestled in a pine-clad valley beneath Mount Kynortion in the Argolis region of the Peloponnese. Revered as the birthplace of the healing god Asclepius, the sanctuary centered on the Doric Temple of Asclepius, the Abaton dormitory hall where patients practiced therapeutic dream incubation (enkoimesis), and the circular Tholos and acoustically celebrated 14,000-seat Ancient Theater designed by Polykleitos the Younger.
Photo: Annatsach, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The small granite island at the geographic and spiritual center of the ring of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea, revered throughout classical antiquity as the sacred birthplace where the Titaness Leto gave birth to the twin deities Apollo and Artemis beside the Sacred Lake. Home to three parallel Temples of Apollo, the archaic Terrace of the Naxian Lions, the treasury of the Delian League (478 BCE), and a remarkably preserved Hellenistic cosmopolitan port city.
Photo: Geraki, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
A remarkably preserved fifth-century BCE grey limestone temple standing at 1,131 meters elevation on the rocky slopes of Mount Kotilion at Bassae in the southwestern Peloponnese. Designed between 420 and 400 BCE by Ictinus (architect of the Parthenon) for the citizens of Phigaleia to honor Apollo Epicurius (Apollo the Helper in war and pestilence), it is unique in classical Greek architecture for its north-south orientation, its interior marble frieze, and its synthesis of all three classical orders: Doric, Ionic, and the oldest known Corinthian capital in history.
Photo: Tomisti, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Vương cung thánh đường năm nhịp gian lớn nhất Hy Lạp dựng ngay trên nền nhà tắm La Mã nơi Thánh tử đạo Demetrios chịu phúc tử đạo năm 306, nổi tiếng với hầm mộ tuôn dầu thơm, tranh khảm vàng thế kỷ 7 và thánh tích của vị bổn mạng thành Thessaloniki.
Photo: Dan Lundberg, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
Một trong những nhà thờ cổ kính và nguyên vẹn nhất của thành phố Thessaloniki, xây dựng vào thế kỷ 7 và 8 theo kiểu vương cung thánh đường có mái vòm chuyển tiếp sang chữ thập nội tiếp, lưu giữ bức tranh khảm vòm Chúa Thăng Thiên thế kỷ 9 tráng lệ.
Photo: Photograph: Myrabella, Phạm vi công cộng, Wikimedia Commons
Đan viện Chính Thống giáo nằm bên Con đường Thiêng nối Athens với Eleusis, dựng trên nền đền thần Apollo Vòng Nguyệt Quế và tái thiết cuối thế kỷ 11 với mái vòm bát giác lưu giữ bức tranh khảm Chúa Kitô Toàn Năng uy nghiêm bậc nhất.
Photo: Giovanni Dall'Orto, CC BY-SA 2.5, Wikimedia Commons
An eleventh-century Imperial Byzantine Orthodox monastery nestled in the valley of Mount Provateion on the island of Chios, founded between 1042 and 1049 by Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and celebrated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its insular domed-octagon architecture and radiant gold-ground mosaics.
Photo: Marmontel, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
The fortified Late Byzantine capital of the Despotate of the Morea clinging to the steep slopes of Mount Taygetos overlooking ancient Sparta, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Palaiologan Renaissance monasteries, fresco cycles at Pantanassa and Peribleptos, and the Cathedral of Saint Demetrios where the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI was crowned in 1449.
Photo: Josep M. Gracia, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The mother church of the Archdiocese of Athens and the Church of Greece, constructed between 1842 and 1862 using marble salvaged from seventy-two ruined Byzantine churches across Athens, enshrining the relics of Saint Philothei of Athens and Patriarch Gregory V directly beside the twelfth-century Little Mitropoli.
Photo: Jebulon, CC0, Wikimedia Commons
The Roman Catholic Cathedral and Minor Basilica of Athens on Panepistimiou Avenue, designed by Leo von Klenze and Lysandros Kaftanzoglou between 1853 and 1865 in the Neo-Renaissance basilica style with twelve monolithic green marble columns from Tinos honoring Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, the first Bishop of Athens converted by Saint Paul.
Photo: GeorgeKokkos, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
The preeminent Marian pilgrimage sanctuary of modern Greece crowning the hilltop of Chora on the Cycladic island of Tinos, built entirely of gleaming white marble between 1823 and 1830 over the spot where the miraculous Byzantine Icon of the Annunciation was unearthed on January 30, 1823 following the visions of Saint Pelagia.
Photo: rene boulay, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
One of the most beloved pilgrimage sanctuaries of healing in the contemporary Eastern Orthodox world, nestled in the tranquil inland valley of Kontos on Aegina Island in the Saronic Gulf, where Saint Nektarios of Pentapolis (1846 to 1920) restored the Convent of the Most Holy Trinity in 1904 above the site now crowned by a monumental domed Basilica.
Photo: Jean Housen, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
The monumental liturgical seat of the Holy Metropolis of Corinth rising beside the Gulf of Corinth, preserving two millennia of unbroken Apostolic heritage since Saint Paul founded the Corinthian Church in 51 to 52 CE and addressed to it the immortal Hymn to Love in First Corinthians 13.
Photo: Zde, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
No place matches this filter yet.
This library is open and free, and it records its own progress in public. Three things you can help with today:
Write to thayungkhiem@gmail.com
Because they change constantly. A library that is wrong once about a practical detail loses its standing on everything else. Check with the place itself before you travel.
From Wikimedia Commons under open licences, each credited to its photographer, or photographed by UK MASTER ACADEMY. No image is published without both its author and its licence.
Four tests: it is officially listed as a heritage site, it belongs to a tradition this library covers, its site and orientation can be read in feng shui terms, and an openly licensed photograph exists.
The library opens one country at a time, beginning with the countries that have the most readers, and within each country with its most significant places. A grey country is simply one whose turn has not come. Suggestions are welcome through the page of Master Ưng Khiêm.
