Holy Meteora - this Monastic State of the Rocks - is the largest and most important, after Mount Athos, Orthodox monastic center in Greece. In the northwestern part of the Thessalian land, from ancient times, the stone- built giants of Holy Meteora are towering silent and motionless, proud and majestic, among the mountains of Pindos and Antichasia, close to the bosom of Pinios river, dominant towers of nature and guardian angels of Kalambaka and Kastraki.

The stone forest of god-building rocks composes one of the most impressive and majestic geological phenomena of our planet.

The prevailing theory holds that the creation of the rocks is due to a D shape cone - that was consisted of river stones and mud, which was flowing into the primordial Thessalian lake.

After the geological separation of the mountains Olympus and Ossa, the lake's waters found an outlet to the Aegean Sea through Tempe. Then, this volume (due to the corrosive effects of earthquakes, winds and rains over millions of years) was split in stones and huge solid rocks - of height of up to four hundred meters!...

In trackless peaks of these cute and naked rocks, the bold and decisive hermit discovered the path that leads to the celestial rooms and ends to coveted deification.

That's why the rocks, which are between the sky and earth - providing the level of ascetic spiritual ascent - are called "Meteora" by Athanasios monk the Meteorite (founder of the Monastery of the Great Meteoro) in the 14th century. The Holy Meteora made since then a witness of Christ, the life continuation of the One and Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of His.

The Monastic Life in the Orthodox Church is a God's institution that requires a special tend and a special gift of Holy Spirit. The purpose of monasticism is the sanctification, theosis, through the obedience, asceticism and prayer. The monks toil day and night with fasting, vigil, work, praying, not only for their own salvation, but also for the universe's, with hours of sincere prayers and supplications.

The first traces of the history of Holy Meteora is lost in the mists of legends and traditions. However, since the 11th century, the first hermits were nesting in hollows of windswept rocks. By the late 11th and the early 12th century, a rudimentary little ascetic state, was created the Cloister of Doupiani or Stagon, with the worship center to be the Church of Virgin Mary - the "Kyriako" of the cloister.

During the 14th century, Saint Athanasius the Meteorite formed the first organized monastic community on the greatest rock of the stone forest, the Great Platylitho or Great Meteoro - and by setting the "operation", signals the presence of the Monastic State of the Rocks, the Holy Meteora.

Since then, twenty-four monasteries and even more historical little monasteries, cells, prayer places, hermitages, caves, poles (stylite), etc. - scattered in all the Meteora rocks, and were flourished, to the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, which constructed or renovated mainly during the 16th century - when begun the great prosperity of the Monastic State - with a continuous presence of more than 600 years.

Of the 24 monasteries today, some are ruined (Holy Spirit, Agios Dimitrios, Agia Moni, Almighty, Ipsilotera, Agios Georgios, Ypapanti etc.) and some are survived intact and operate the Grand Meteora Monasteries (Transfiguration of Jesus Christ ), Barlaam (All Saints), Holy Trinity, St. Stephen, Roussanou (St. Varvara) and St. Nicholas Anapafsas.

Holy Meteora are all a Holy Land.
It is a sacred place and God-built and God-guarded because every rock, every cave, every ravine, every stone have been sanctified - because the holy ascetics and martyrs of the Monastic State of the Rocks, for 600 years, had walked and had prayed and had touched all places, all peaks and gorges of this place.

Holy Meteora for the Christian, historical, architecture, iconography (and art in general) and geological evidence, are recognized as protected and listed as monument of humanity by UNESCO and other international organizations.

The site of Holy Meteora, from October 1995 by a State law - and as a continuation of a decision in 1990 of the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece - was declared as a "sacred, immutable and inviolable place", which guarantees its Orthodox authenticity and its effective protection.

Continuing the Orthodox ascetic and monastic presence in Holy Meteora - that it was offered by numerous Saints in the Orthodox Church - the current holy fraternities, by the love of Christ, in perfect cooperation and emulation, are offering a rich and diverse spiritual, missionary, restorative - renovating, social and national work, as being universal springs of spiritual supply.