The Most Beautiful UNESCO-Listed Sacred Places in Greece
7 places · updated 14 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful UNESCO-listed sacred places in Greece are Parthenon, Daphni Monastery and Nea Moni of Chios. The list covers 7 UNESCO-listed sacred places. Last updated 14 October 2026.
Greece holds two sacred traditions on the World Heritage list, one after the other on the same ground. The temples of the classical city-states set the proportions that Western architecture has followed ever since, and the Byzantine centuries added monasteries whose mosaics and frescoes are among the finest of the Orthodox world. UNESCO recognition in Greece often marks the meeting point of the two: sanctuaries chosen for their setting on a hill, an island or a rock.
The Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens, completed in the 430s BC for Athena, is the defining temple of classical antiquity. Three 11th-century monasteries share a single inscription for their mosaics: Daphni near Athens, with its stern Christ Pantocrator in the dome; Hosios Loukas in Boeotia, the largest of the three; and Nea Moni on Chios, founded under the emperor Constantine IX Monomachos.
On Patmos, the fortified Monastery of Saint John the Theologian, founded in 1088, rises above the cave where tradition says John received the Book of Revelation. In Thessaly, Varlaam is one of the monasteries of Meteora, built on top of sandstone pillars that rise sheer from the plain, where monks once hauled people and supplies up in nets.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Parthenon | Ruins | ✓ |
| 2 | Daphni Monastery | Monastery | ✓ |
| 3 | Nea Moni of Chios | Monastery | ✓ |
| 4 | Monastery of Saint John the Theologian | Monastery | ✓ |
| 5 | Temple of Apollo Epicurius in Bassae | Ruins | ✓ |
| 6 | Hosios Loukas | Monastery | ✓ |
| 7 | Varlaam monastery | Monastery | ✓ |
01 Parthenon
Παρθενώνας
Greece · 1.6 km from Athens37.972° N 23.727° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Image by nonbirinonko from Pixabay The Parthenon looks perfectly straight only because almost nothing about it actually is.
Did you know? On 26 September 1687 a Venetian mortar round hit gunpowder stored inside by the Ottoman garrison, and the blast killed about 300 people.
02 Daphni Monastery
Μονή Δαφνίου
Greece · 9 km from Piraeus38.013° N 23.636° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Sp!ros · CC BY-SA 4.0 Daphni Monastery stands in a pine wood in Chaidari, about 11 km north-west of central Athens, beside the old Sacred Way that ran to Eleusis. Its name comes from the laurel groves of a sanctuary of Apollo that once stood here; one Ionic column from that temple is still built into the church, while others were taken to London by Lord Elgin.
03 Nea Moni of Chios
Νέα Μονή Χίου
Greece · 7 km from Chios38.374° N 26.056° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
RomkeHoekstra · CC BY-SA 4.0 Nea Moni, the "New Monastery", sits on Provateio mountain in the interior of Chios, and it holds one of the three great sets of eleventh-century mosaics in Greece, alongside Hosios Loukas and Daphni. It was founded by the Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and Empress Zoe.
04 Monastery of Saint John the Theologian
Μονή του Αγίου Ιωάννου του Θεολόγου
Greece37.309° N 26.548° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Valeria Casali · CC BY-SA 3.0 Seen from the sea, the Monastery of Saint John the Theologian looks less like a religious house than a castle: a mass of grey battlemented walls on the summit of Patmos, with the white houses of Chora wrapped around it. It was founded in 1088, when the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos granted the island to the monk Christodoulos, who fortified it heavily against pirates and Seljuk raids.
05 Temple of Apollo Epicurius in Bassae
Ναός Επικούριου Απόλλωνα
Greece37.430° N 21.900° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Jean Housen · CC BY-SA 4.0 On a bare limestone shoulder of Mount Kotilion, more than 1,100 metres up in the wild hills where ancient Arcadia met Messenia, stands one of the best-preserved temples of classical Greece. Its name, Bassai, means roughly a little vale among the rocks, and the setting is exactly that: grey stone, oak scrub and a long view over ridges towards the sea.
Did you know? Bassae became the first Greek site on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1986.
06 Hosios Loukas
Μονή Οσίου Λουκά Βοιωτίας
Greece38.395° N 22.746° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
Panosmyr · CC BY-SA 4.0 Hosios Loukas is a walled monastery on the slopes of Mount Helicon in Boeotia, and one of the three places in Greece, with Daphni and Nea Moni on Chios, where the art of the Middle Byzantine period survives in its most complete form. It grew around the tomb of a local hermit, Luke of Steiris, who died in 953 and was remembered for a prophecy that the Byzantines would retake Crete.
Did you know? Luke's prophecy that an emperor named Romanos would retake Crete came true in 961, though the general who did it was Nikephoros Phokas, serving Romanos II.
07 Varlaam monastery
Μονή Βαρλαάμ
Greece39.725° N 21.630° E
- UNESCO World Heritage
- UNESCO natural beauty
Image by MichelleCoppiens from Pixabay Varlaam is the second largest of the Meteora monasteries and one of the four still inhabited by monks, perched on a sandstone and conglomerate pillar that rises 373 metres above the Pineios valley near Kalambaka. It takes its name from a hermit, Varlaam, who climbed the rock in the fourteenth century and built a small church and cells there.
Did you know? According to tradition, building materials for the main church were hauled up the rock for some 22 years, yet the church itself was raised in only 20 days.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful UNESCO-listed sacred places in Greece?
- On our list, Parthenon ranks first, followed by Daphni Monastery and Nea Moni of Chios.
- Why were the Meteora monasteries built on top of rocks?
- Hermits had lived in caves in the rock pillars since the Byzantine period, and from the 14th century monks built monasteries on the summits for isolation and safety. Until steps were cut in the 20th century, access was by ladders or nets raised with a winch.
- Where was the Book of Revelation written?
- Tradition holds that John received the Revelation in a cave on the island of Patmos, now the Cave of the Apocalypse. The cave and the monastery above it are a World Heritage site together with the island's main town.
- What are Daphni, Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni known for?
- The three monasteries are celebrated for their 11th-century mosaics, among the finest surviving examples of Middle Byzantine art. They share a single World Heritage inscription made in 1990.
- How many UNESCO-listed sacred places are on this list in Greece?
- The list covers 7 UNESCO-listed sacred places.