Scanna infoskriv frå klosteret utanfor Chania.
The Holy Patriarchal and Stavropegic Monastery of Chrysopigi lies a short distance from the town of Chania, in Western Grete. The Monastery is dedicated to our Lady of the Life-Giving Spring, who is known popularly as 'Chrysopigi', the Golden Fountain. Following in a centuries-old history and tradition, the sacrament of monastic life is lived out today in the monastery of Chrysopigi through worship and ascetic practice.
Liturgical worship lies at the heart of monasticism and is, above all, that which opens the prayer of the monastic community to embrace the wider community, as people from all walks of life, young and old, come to participate in this daily cycle of doxology and find a source of light, love and grace in lives often oppressed by conflict, anxiety and absence of meaning.
The sisters of the community ply the traditional monastic crafts: icon and fresco painting, ecclesiastical embroidery, stone carving, book publishing, book-binding, bee-keeping, candle-making, the production of incense and of hand-made soap, etc. They also cultivate the Monastery lands using organic farming methods. These arts and crafts, enriched in the life of the community through prayer and asceticism, reveal the sacredness of the world and of human life as understood and experienced in the Orthodox tradition.
The Chrysopigi community has restored the old monastic dependency of St Kyriaki, which lies 12 kilometers from Chania. This area has become a conservation precinct with dense vegetation and many cave chapels which are accessed via specially laid footpaths.
Saint Porphyrios (1906-1991), the most recent Saint to have been recognised by the Orthodox Church, who lived in Greece, supported the Chrysopigi community through his prayers and spiritual guidance. Through the grace of God, this holy Elder discerned that the area around St Kyriaki had been sanctified through the labours and prayers of previous generations of ascetics and foresaw that by again becoming a place of prayer and becoming accessible to all people, it will become a place of reconciliation with God and creation. Thus with his blessing and encouragement, the sisterhood of Chrysopigi regenerated the area, which is now a place of prayer and worship. Every day the sisters walk along the paths leading to the cave chapels which are dedicated to various saints for prayer and meditation. The Divine Liturgy, attended by many young people from out-with the monastic community, is also often celebrated in these chapels.
In addition to the restoration of the old monastic buildings, a new stone-built monastery has been erected on a rocky prominence overlooking the St Kyriaki valley. The buildings all use renewable energy sources. The wider region has thus been formed into a unified monastic complex in which built and unbuilt areas exist in balance. Some of the monastic buildings also host a variety of conferences and meetings.
The monastic community also seeks to raise ecological awareness through environmental education programmes aimed at school children of all ages and at students, as well as at other groups of people, so that they all may come to recognize and preserve the sacredness of creation.
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