Hagios Ioannis Prodromos Monastery on Mount Menoikeion: Byzantine monastic practice, sacred topography, and architecture (Greece)

This dissertation discusses aspects of monastic practice at Hagios Ioannis Prodromos monastery on Mt. Menoikeion in northern Greece. Continuously inhabited since its foundation by Ioannikios in the 1270s, Hagios Ioannis Prodromos presents an important paradigm of Byzantine monastic tradition that demonstrates the diverse, strategic role of monastic establishments.; Relying both on the results of fieldwork and on the extant Byzantine textual sources, this dissertation explores the topography of monastic life as well as the physical and symbolic construction of a monastery during the late Byzantine period. The five chapters of my thesis address different aspects of the monastery's rich tradition: the history of its foundation in the Byzantine period, the creation of a sacred topography in its rural surroundings, the development of the monastic complex, and finally the architecture and building history of the Byzantine katholikon and the tower. In brief, my work suggests an earlier date for the monastery of Hagios Ioannis Prodromos and the close involvement of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos in its refoundation by Ioannikios. The monastery's first founder adopted an existing complex and a katholikon to revive monasticism and Byzantine control in a highly contested region. Prodromos monastery's building growth and organization reflects the history of its community. This history expresses the daily chores and the repetitive rituals of monastic life.; This continuous cycle of monastic practice on Mt. Menoikeion is followed today by a community of nuns under Abbess Fevronia. Since 1986, the presence of nuns in the monastery is an invaluable source of information. The nuns are the present-day bearers of the monastery's long tradition, and thus, their experience demonstrates the repetitive patterns of monastic life.; On the whole, the study of Hagios Ioannis Prodromos' sacred topography and architecture exposed a monastic community in a balanced symbiosis with its natural environment and the society of Serres. This relationship is reaffirmed daily through the continuous cycle of monastic chores and the persistence of tradition. Today, approximately seven hundred thirty years after the monastery's foundation, it is safe to assume that Ioannikios succeeded in his mission.