The Monastery of the Holy Apostles () is an

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

monastery in

Kleino Kleino (; formerly Klinovos, ) is an Aromanian village and a former municipality in the Trikala regional unit, Thessaly, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Meteora, of which it is a municipal unit. The ...

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. It is located northeast of the settlement itself, on a

plateau In geology and physical geography, a plateau (; ; : plateaus or plateaux), also called a high plain or a tableland, is an area of a highland consisting of flat terrain that is raised sharply above the surrounding area on at least one side. ...

of difficult accessibility. The monastery was built approximately in the middle of the 18th century, its construction having been overseen by bishop Stagi Paisios. It is built in the style of the monasteries of

Mount Athos Mount Athos (; ) is a mountain on the Athos peninsula in northeastern Greece directly on the Aegean Sea. It is an important center of Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox monasticism. The mountain and most of the Athos peninsula are governed ...

. The monastery features one of the oldest known inscriptions in the

Aromanian language The Aromanian language (, , , , , or , , ), also known as Vlach or Macedo-Romanian, is an Eastern Romance languages, Eastern Romance language, similar to Megleno-Romanian language, Megleno-Romanian, Istro-Romanian language, Istro-Romanian an ...

, which is the following: , meaning "Enter the church in awe, tremble as you receive the communion of Mary, to escape fire and hell". It is written using the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as wel ...

and it is estimated that it was made around the year 1780. This prayer is located on the interior of the

arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...

of the entrance to the monastery and it is also written in

Ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history through late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the development of Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient h ...

and

Modern Greek Modern Greek (, or , ), generally referred to by speakers simply as Greek (, ), refers collectively to the dialects of the Greek language spoken in the modern era, including the official standardized form of the language sometimes referred to ...

. Its author was St. Zosimas.

References

Further reading