Crete-The secret monestery of St. John the Hermit.

Agis Triada
Quick pencil sketch, Crete. 1962.

Flicking through my draftsman's drawers, I came across a drawing  made several years ago of the church of Agis Triada. An old 17th cent. monastery about 18.5km outside of Hania in western Crete.  The approach to  is down a tree lined avenue of cypress pines opening  out into a large square. To one side ,there is a neat vineyard, pruned to what is called a gooseberry bush [ vines without a trellis], while the other side consisted of an old olive grove. Such scenes are the standard vista in this part of Crete, vines, olives among sheep and goats. Goats supply the music, while  sheep can be relied upon to dance in their sheepish way.

Agis Triade itself  presents the viewer with a palatial facade of warm soft coloured stone. Entering through the Venetian gate, past a large bell tower you are overwhelmed by the strong  scent of orange blossom. Walking on, you come to a grand staircase giving access to the monastery itself, a complex of buildings contained within high stone walls. The church built in 1632 and set in the centre surrounded by an assortment of various structures built over the centuries. Unfortunately, the day Heather and I visited, the church was undergoing major restoration, with the interior packed with scaffolding. The ceiling was painted sky blue with gold and silver stars under the dome, giving the feeling of a vista into heaven. The metal work around the holy of holies had been regilded in gold and was slowly being returned to their former pride of place. There was a small museum ,that housed the remains of an  older monastery destroyed after  fall  of Crete to Turkish forces. I believe every one was killed during the siege, but such is Cretan history, were half her population has been killed every hundred years or so, either by Ottoman or other foreign forces. We decided to walk on the further 4kms, up the rocky track over the mountain to the next monastery of Gouventou.

Our road if you could call it such, wound its way through the rocky landscape, most of Greece is like this, goat tracks running in every direction to unknown villages, surely a partisans or hikers paradise. While the goats bellowed and sheep danced, we passed a memorial cut into the a solid block of marble that seemed to refer to the Cretan partisans who were killed in the last war between 1940-45 . Passing  Gouventou as there seemed to be little of interest , we decided to walk on hoping to reach the distant coast and the beach. Ten minutes later we were passed by a workman and his two dogs, then a rather large rounded monk not unlike Friar Tuck appeared with his donkey. I was somewhat surprised to see strapped to each side of the beast, two milk crates [Bakers milk design] used for carrying supplies.There appears to be no end to the usefulness of these crates the world over. Further on both monk and workman disappeared into a grotto apparently to do maintenance work on the chapel within.

After a further fifteen minutes down the track which seemed now to have been better constructed, we noticed what looked like a ruin on the opposite side of the ravine half hidden in the bushes. It was only then on turning the corner that I noticed the remains of some stone steps among the vegetation. As I descended a bridge like structure came into view bridging the gully. Continuing on down the stepped path in a zig-zag manner more and more buildings started to appear among the under growth. Both Heather and I became quite excited as it was a little like descending into the unknown world of Alice. I am sure archaeologists must feel such excitement on a discovery. Around another bend on the track a Venician Gate stood out side what appeared to be a disused church/grotto cut into the rock face. What was wonderful about this was the total unexpected nature of the whole discovery, we had set out following a goat track hopefully to the beach.

Heather decending the staircase to the Monestery

As we continued to descend into this hidden world ,monks cells appeared ,enclosed in terraced gardens. The remains of bread ovens hugged the rocky gully walls. The buildings on each side of the gorge were connected by the bridge we had seen earlier on. This now appeared to be considerable larger settlement than we first thought, the bridge was longer than it first appeared ,with it's upper level the size of a tennis court. More monks cells appeared built into the supporting pillars at both ends of the bridge ,each cell about three metres by five . They had a breezy window and door at each end, it was only later that I realised that this was to afford a quick escape in the event of danger from the Turks. The cells had barrel vault ceilings, some had stone benches running along one side wall for sleeping. You would need to be very spartan to endure a winter here.

Roof of the monks cells.

At the time, we had no idea what we had discovered and when we asked at the tourist centre they seemed to know even less. Several days later after some research, I discovered that we had stumbled upon the site of the ruins of Moni Katholiko, a monastery delicated to St. John the Hermit who lived in these caves during the Ottoman occupation. The site was also used by other Christians during the periodic persecutions that took place all over Crete, often with tens of thousands being put to death.