Located in the Pieria region at the foot of Mount Olympus, the Monastery of Panagia Petra has been intimately connected with the spiritual life and history of the area for over twelve centuries. Until the late 19th century, it even served as the seat of the Bishop of Petra.
Alexandra Kalinovskaya
Contemporaries called it the “Women’s Optina Hermitage.” It was precisely there that the Optina elders blessed those desiring monastic life to enter.
The historic monastery, founded by Sts. Nikolaj Velimirović and Mardarije and home to the incorrupt relics of the latter, served as the focal point for the traditional St. Mardarije Day celebration that has become a cornerstone event for Orthodox Christians across North America.
Created between 843 and 867 AD, the Chludov Psalter is one of only three surviving early monuments of Byzantine art from this period.
The schismatics served in Warsaw without the blessing of His Beatitude Metropolitan Sawa, primate of the Polish Orthodox Church, who, together with the whole of his Local Church, doesn’t recognize the OCU or the ordinations of its clerics.