"On these isolated, rough rock pillars suspended in the air,
one can certainly hear the voice of God.
Here one ascends. Here one flutters on holy horizons."
-- Metropolitan Dionysos of Tricca and Stagoi.
Roussanou, the Holy Monastery of Saint Barbara, crowns a towering rock in the great Stone Forest of Meteora in central Greece. Famed for its staggering natural beauty and cliffhanging monasteries, Meteora is a place of pilgrimage for the Greek Orthodox. I visited Meteora on February 28, 2015 and Roussanou Monastery was one of my favorite stops.
Ever since, I have aspired to try to capture the dramatic beauty and spiritual aura of this very special region in some small degree. The modest piece above, a 7" x 10" watercolor of Roussanou, is a small down payment on that ambition. I wanted to highlight the drama of Roussanou's position so I chose an older view -- one that shows the monastery as it looked before modern accretions including a new access tower, wooden loggia, and other outbuildings.
The composition is simple -- four triangles. One is the monastery itself on its great rock. Another is the shadowed valley floor lying far below the monastery. This latter triangle takes up the entire left side of the painting. The other two, smaller triangles together comprise the near background above and below the monastery. The triangle at top right is primarily stone massifs, the one at bottom right mainly foreground trees.
Access by rope ladders
Ascetic monks inhabited the rock of Roussanou as early as the 13th century. The general establishment of the monastery community dates to the 16th century when two priest-brothers arrived from Ioannina. In about 1529, with the permission of the Metropolitan of Larissa, these two brothers rebuilt an old Katholikon, or main church, on the site and organized Roussanou's cenobitic communal life. In their will, they wrote "we gathered a lot of monks, and we ordained deacons and priests in the glory of God". The vibrant murals of the Katholikon, still in good shape after more than four centuries, were painted in 1561.
Until the late 1800s the only way to ascend to Roussanou was by rope-ladder. In 1868 wooden bridges replaced the dangerous rope ladders and in 1930 concrete and steel supplanted the wooden structures.
Place of refuge
In times of conflict, the remote fastnesses of Meteora have been a place of refuge. In 1757, residents of Trikala fled to Roussanou to escape their Turkish rulers. During Greco-Turkish fighting in 1897 families from nearby Kastraki and Kalambaka took shelter at the monastery. By the early 20th century, the site was virtually abandoned. During World War II Greek resistance fighters operated in the area and clashed with German occupation forces. Roussanou and other sites were severely damaged -- and not only by the Germans. At the nearby Monastery of Saint Stephen I saw a bullet-pocked icon that locals said pro-Communist Greek forces had used for target practice.
Greek Orthodox Nunnery
Repairs and restoration began again at Roussanou in 1982 and since 1988 the monastery has been a Greek Orthodox nunnery. When I visited the site in 2015 there were about a dozen nuns in residence. I was hosted with great generosity by Abbess Filothei. I was sad to learn recently that Mother Filothei had died in December 2020 at age 72. She is now buried at Roussanou. On the monastery's website she welcomes visitors with these words:
"The sweat and the tears of the saints continue to exude
not an impersonal positive energy, but the grace of God
that draws in and gives rest to the soul.
It is our sincere hope that that no visitor to this place
should depart without tasting this divine grace."
