Nea Moni

Nea Moni is an 11th-century monastery on the island of Chios that has been recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is positioned on the Provateio Oros Mt. In the island's indoors, about eight km from Chios town. It is well known for its mosaics, which, together with the ones at Daphni and Hosios Loukas, are one of the best examples of Macedonian Renaissance artwork in Greece. The monastery become built in the mid-11th century, by using Byzantine emperor Constantine IX Monomachos and his spouse, Empress Zoe.

According to lifestyle, it is constructed on the vicinity in which 3 monks, Nikitas, Ioannes and Iosif, miraculously observed an icon of the Virgin Mary, placing from a branch of myrtle At that point, Constantine became exiled in close by Lesbos, and the priests visited him and informed of a imaginative and prescient in line with which he could finally end up emperor. Constantine promised to build a church if this must come to pass. Indeed, in 1042, Constantine have become emperor, and in gratitude began building the monastery, dedicated to the Theotokos.

The fundamental church the katholikon changed into inaugurated in 1049, and the complex finished in 1055, after Constantine's The monastery was early on endowed with privileges: in a chrysobull of July 1049, Constantine Monomachos granted the monastery the pinnacle tax of all Jews of the island of Chios, and set the monastery aside from any advanced ecclesiastic or secular hierarchy. As a result of land grants, tax exemptions and other privileges granted through successive emperors, the monastery prospered in the course of the Byzantine perio.