Medikion monastery

The Monastery of St. Sergius of Medikion (Greek Μονή Αγίου Σεργίου του Μηδικίου ), known as the Medikion Monastery ( Μονή Μηδικίου, Turkish Medikion Manastırı ), and later as the Holy Father's Monastery ( Μονή των Πατέρων ) is a former convent of the Byzantine era near the present Tirilye in Turkey ( in the Middle Ages Trigleia in Bithynia ). It is known for its role played by its founders in the resistance against the Byzantine iconoclasm.

The only remains of the monastery complex is the perimeter ( peribolos ), which with its high walls and its solid door has a castle-like appearance. Above the entrance is a badly damaged inscription, on which only the date 1801 is readable. The historian Adolphe Herges writes in his Les Monastères de Bithynie that the name Medikios could be derived from the name of Clover, and that the church was called in modern times by the people as " Pateron " which means " fathers ".

Tryphon E. Evangelides and William Mitchell Ramsay dated the construction of the monastery to the year 810, but Herge's preferred a date around 780 This is the now accepted date. The founder of the monastery was Nicephorus, who rebuilt a ruined church dedicated to St Michael and built the monastery at that church around. Nikephoros was the first abbot until his death in 813 Nikephoros participated in the Second Council of Nicaea, 787, where he stated that the original name of the monastery " St. Sergios of Medikion " was. After Nikephoros ' death became his pupil, Nicetas Nicetas Dept. was followed with the commencement of the second iconoclasm under Emperor Leo V ( 813-820 ). He died in 824 and is venerated by the Orthodox Church as a ikonoduler confessors of the faith. Both Nicephorus and Nicetas were interred in the narthex of the monastery church of St. Michael.

The history of the monastery is then only partially known.

In 1800 the monastery was burnt down and rebuilt in 1801, but was in a state of disrepair after Frederick William Haslucks visit in the last quarter of the century. Hasluck described the katholikon as " gorgeous ", " great," and wrote that it was originally decorated with arched black and white mosaics in the courtyard. Pancenko, who came here in 1910, turned his attention to the old icons.