Monastery of Prophet Elias of Thira
Fortress-like mountaintop monastery museum holding rare Byzantine icons and a murdered patriarch's mitre.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Monastery of Prophet Elias of Thira, on Santorini's highest peak, opens with an embroidered bishop's mitre behind glass and the man who wore it, Gregory the Fifth, Patriarch of Constantinople, seized from his own cathedral on Easter Sunday 1821. It traces what happened to him in the days that followed, and how Greek sailors intervened once his body reached the sea. From there it follows the separate, unlikely route that brought his mitre to this fortress monastery instead. Look for the walls the monks built here to keep out pirates.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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