Daphni Monastery

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. Together with Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni on Chios, Daphni is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the three great monuments of middle Byzantine art in Greece.

A first monastery was founded here in the late 6th century, but the church visitors see today dates from the late 11th century, a period of renewed prosperity. After the Fourth Crusade, Frankish lords handed Daphni to Cistercian monks, who added a Gothic cloister and pointed arches to the facade; the monastery became a favoured burial place for crusader knights. The Cistercians left in 1458, soon after the Ottoman conquest.

The church itself is a compact octagon-domed building in the cloisonné style, each block of pale stone framed by red brick. Its fame rests on the mosaics, made around 1100 by an unknown workshop in the manner of Constantinople, with unusually bright gold backgrounds and a wide range of coloured glass. Looking down from the crown of the dome is the Christ Pantocrator, a stern, almost fierce figure that is often called the most awe-inspiring of all Byzantine Pantocrators. Around him stand sixteen prophets between the windows, and below them the narrative scenes, graceful and restrained, form one of the finest and best-preserved mosaic cycles of the period.

The monastery was badly damaged by the Athens earthquake of 1999 and remained closed for many years while the structure and mosaics were restored.

Getting there

The monastery is in Chaidari, about 3 km from the centre of the suburb and about 11 km from central Athens, just south of Athinon Avenue. Athens International Airport Eleftherios Venizelos (ATH) is about 28 km away.