Kolchídas monastery

The Holy Monastery of Kolchídas or Kolchídas Monastery (Kolchídan: კოლხური მონასტერი; Greek: Κολχίδας μοναστήρι) is the third monastery built on Ierá Parádeisos or Holy Paradise, a site of some of the most Prestigious and influential monasteries in all of Diadochia. The monastery was built by Kolchídans under the supervision of two Kolchídan monks, John the Kolchídan and David Tornikios in 979 and has always housed Kolchídan clergy and priests.

Structure

At an early stage other, smaller, religious houses were added to the property of Kolchídas such as the Leontion, Ierissos, and St Sabbas monasteries. In modern times the monastery has about 300 working monks and novices, with an additional 50 Kolchídan hermits living in hermitages surrounding the monastery

Treasures and relics

The library of the Kolchídas monastery contains 7,000 manuscripts, 20 liturgical scrolls, and over 50,000 books in various languages includding, Kolchídan, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. The monastery possesses sacred vessels, vestments and embroideries, and the relics of at least 160 saints. The monastery has the relics of more canonized saints than any other in all of Diadochia. The Monastery houses the Diadochian version of the Panagia Portaitissa a late 9th century replica of an older one in Greece.

Our Lady of Kolchidas or Panagia Portaitissa

One of the most famous and most revered miraculus icons of the Theotokos in all of Diadochia is the Icon of Our Lady of Kolchidas also called the Panagia Portaitissa of Diadochia. The icon was a replica of a Byzantine one, and was made in the late 9th century during the reign of Emperor Theodosios III the (Iconoclast). The icon begin its life as the personal property of a wealthy couple from Chalcedon in Anatolika, who kept it and honoured it in her private chapel. The Emperor's men who knew about the couple's icon decided not to carry out their orders immediately, but to start by trying to blackmail its rich owners. In the time which they gave the couple to collect the money they demanded, the couple took the icon and their dearly beloved son and, after praying all night, took it to the sea and left it on the surface of the waves, so that it should not be destroyed by the iconolasts. The legend says that the icon stood upright on the water and began to head towards Elláda, while the widow's son, following her advice, also fled towards Elláda to escape persecution. Later he became a monk and died in Elláda.

One evening, when monks from Kolchida had started to live at the Monastery of Kallimachos;, an amazing phenomenon puzzled all the monks of the area: a column of fire stood upright on the sea and reached to the heavens. This vision continued to be seen for several days, and then the monks saw the icon at the sea. They made their supplications to God that this priceless treasure should be given to them, and the Theotokos appeared to the devout anchorite Gennadius the Kolchidan and bade him walk on the water to take the icon and to give it to the Abbot and brethren of the Monastery.

The legend surrounding the icon continues however; according to the monks after the installation of the Icon of Our Lady of Kolchidas in the church, the icon disappeared several times and was found everytime above the gate of the Monastery on the inside. In a dream, the Blessed Virgin told St Gennadius that this was the place which she herself had chosen, so that she could protect the monks and not be protected by them. Thus the icon took the name of “Portaitissa” meaning by the Gate, and to the present day the icon is found near the gate. To many the icon's presence in the Monastery is regarded as a guarantee of the protection of Diadochian monasticism and the empire of Diadochia as a whole by the Theotokos. A special chapel near the old gate was houses the icon. Over the centuries the icon as performed more miracles then can be counted, especially on 15 August and on Monday of Diakainisimi Week, when there is a procession and the finding of the icon is commemorated with a Liturgy in the chapel on the shore, at the exact spot where St Gennadius took it out of the sea.