Monastery of the Dormition of the Virgin in Divri (Lower Monastery)

South of Divri (Lambeia) is the Holy Dormition Monastery, better known as Kato Moni (Lower Monastery). It is celebrated on August 23 as it is dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin. On the north side of the monastery, whose aisles surround a small courtyard, is the katholicon. It is a barrel-vaulted single-nave church without a narthex and with the entrance located on its south side.

Murals from 1746 adorn the fully wall-painted church, which has a wood-carved altar screen with an inscription that dates it to the 18th century. The decoration of the church represents full-body saints, ascetics and monks, the Akathistos Hymn, scenes from the Christological cycle, the Second Coming, while the apse is occupied by the Pantocrator surrounded by the Virgin Mary, John the Forerunner, orders of angels and the Evangelists. The hagiographies continue in the sanctuary, with two representations of miracles and the Elevation of the Holy Cross, hierarchs and deacons, while in the apse between the hierarchs and the Platytera are depicted the Divine Liturgy and the Communion of the Apostles.

The church preserves in the apse of its entrance the written founding inscription in which the father Chrysanthos hieromonk Markouris is mentioned as the founder of the katholicon with the fathers of the monastery. The monastery was built in 1746-1747 under Bishop of Olena Simeon and its painter was Antonios from Nezera in Kalavryta. On the west side of the entrance to the katholicon there is a scene depicting the praying founders offering the monastery to the Virgin Mary.

Copyediting: Ephorate of Antiquities of Ilia