Description of the attraction
The Monastery of San Giovanni Teristis is an Orthodox monastery located in the town of Bivondzhi in the Italian region of Calabria. It is part of the Diocese of the Romanian Orthodox Church in Italy.
Until the 11th century, Calabria was part of the Byzantine Empire. At that time, a Greek monk named John Teristus lived in the region in the Vallata dello Stilaro Allaro valley. Over time, his agiasma - a source of holy water - became a popular pilgrimage site, and that is why a Byzantine monastery was built here. After the Norman conquest of Italy, the monastery became one of the most important Basilian temples in the southern part of the country. Its rich library and numerous works of art were famous until the 15th century. Then a short period of decline began, which ended in 1579 - it was then that the order of the Basilian monks again made the monastery its main center in southern Calabria. In the 17th century, the building was plundered by bandits, and the monks moved to another, larger monastery, located outside the town of Stilo. They took with them the relics of St. John Theristus. And at the beginning of the 19th century, after the capture of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by Napoleon, the monastery was bought by the municipality of the Bivondzhi commune and transferred to private hands. Only in the 1980s did he return to the property of the commune, and in the 1990s the monastery was restored. Then he was transferred to the Basilian Order. In 2001, it was visited by Patriarch Bartolomeo I of Constantinople, who transferred the relics of St. John Theristus there. And in 2008, the municipality of Bivonji donated the monastery to the 99-year-old use of the newly created Romanian Orthodox Church.
The monastery building itself is a transitional example from the Byzantine to the Norman style. From the latter, the monastery got four side columns, covered with arches that support the dome. The outer walls bear the obvious features of Byzantine architecture. Inside, there are preserved ancient Byzantine frescoes depicting St. John Theristis.
