It was set on fire by the Turks in 1828 and blown up by the Germans in 1943.

Its foundations were seriously “damaged”, nevertheless the monastery of Agios Dionysios in Olympus, although “wounded”, continued to maintain its “aliveness” thanks to the monks and believers who wanted to worship, in the gorge of Enipeus, at an altitude of 850 meters.

In the last sixteen months, restoration work was carried out on the site of the western wing, where the bell tower and the abbot were.

During all this time, the architect and conservator of monuments Sotiris Tzimas had a physical presence and together with the workers they placed stone by stone in the monastery, under the watchful eye of the monks, so that it could stand tall again.

The excitement is now great for conservationists and monks. “It is very important for us, it is the place sanctified by Saint Dionysios and it was our duty to save the monastery that was destroyed by the German troops during the Second World War,” father Silouanos told the Athenian-Macedonian News Agency.

In fact, next spring an event and consecration of the space is planned, with invited official guests as well as the Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni. The minister visited the site some time ago and saw the completion of the works, with the monks taking the next step and requesting that the last internal part of the monastery that remains dismantled, where the bank is located, be immediately included for financing , the kitchen and the oven.

The aim of the monks is to complete the project so that they can live in the old monastery throughout the year, as they now go up alternately from April to November and as weather permits, from the Holy Monastery of Agios Dionysios, which is located at a distance of three kilometers from Litochoro.

“We are very excited about the completion of the work. It has many visitors who come and admire it,” added Father Silouanos. For his part, the architect Mr. Tzimas, speaking to APE-MPE, described the work as excruciating “due to the complexity and difficulty in transporting the materials as there was no access and everything had to be carried by hand and at a distance of over 50 meters. The space had 50 domes and over 200 arches and everything was judged in detail.”

The old monastery was founded in 1542, in the burning by the Turks a significant part of its relics was lost, while after the bombing by the Germans, the monks moved to the current Holy Monastery of Agios Dionysios. The years passed, but the monks did not forget their old residence and took action to restore it, based mainly on the testimonies about the architecture of the monastery.

Except that at some point, in this whole project, there was a great difficulty in the progress of the work as they did not know how to join the two wings since the corners had been completely destroyed by the explosives and were uneven. And while everything showed that the restoration was “sticking”, a German soldier who was in the group of those who carried the explosives to blow up the monastery, sent some photos in an envelope.

Just before the disaster, he had picked up the camera and captured the place, just as it was before it fell apart.

As restored today.