Nea Moni in Chios: A splendid Byzantine monastery favored by the Emperor

It was built with great splendour, with the imperial sponsorship of the porphyrogennitae daughters of emperor Constantine VIII, Theodora and Zoe, and the latter’s husband, Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos. Monomachos endowed the Monastery with land and granted it tax exemptions. As a result, Nea Moni became one of the most talked about and wealthy religious institutions in the Aegean right up until the 1821 Revolution, when it started going into decline.

A remarkable specimen of the insular octagonal church type, the monastery’s katholicon, dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin Mary (celebrating every August 23), was built during 1042-1055. It was decorated with mosaics painstakingly created by artists hailing from Constantinople, which are now considered to be masterpieces of Byzantine art. An enclosure with a three-storey tower, a vaulted refectory, chapels and wings with cells were gradually added around the katholikon.

Thanks to imperial favour, Nea Moni grew immensely, accommodating hundreds of monks in its heyday. Although it suffered damages caused by the Ottomans during the Chios Massacre in 1822 and the 1881 earthquake, much of the mosaic decoration and fragments of the luxurious, multi-colored marble revetments still survive, waiting to meet the visitor’s awe-filled gaze.

Nea Moni of Chios has been included in the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites since 1990.