In the place of a chapel of the great Father of the Church and Archbishop of Thessaloniki, Saint Gregory Palamas, an important women’s monastery, the Holy Monastery of Saint Gregory Palamas, has flourished in recent decades in the small town of Koufalia in Thessaloniki.
Despite the difficulties, the construction of the chapel was completed in 1980 and inaugurated by His Eminence, Metropolitan of Edessa, Pella and Almopia Kallinikos, as the area, although belonging to the prefecture of Thessaloniki, is ecclesiastically administered by the diocese of Edessa.
In May 1982, the holy retreat was officially founded and in November of the same year the first abbess was enthroned, when the holy retreat began to operate with a small brotherhood of four members.
Gradually, with the personal work of all the brothers and the financial support and moral support of friends and pilgrims, who founded the Panhellenic Association “Romanessyne and Orthodoxy”, the building completion of the holy retreat, the water supply from the water supply network of the Municipality of KoufalIa in 1985, the creation of a borehole in order to be self-sufficient in water and the electricity supply in 1987, proceeded.
In 1982 the catholic of the holy retreat was founded in honour of Saint Gregory Palamas and the Athonite Fathers.
Today, the entire building complex of the sanctuary is divided into two parts a) the first part, which is accessible to pilgrims and includes the church, the bell tower, the archontarion, the guest house, the courtyard and the flower gardens and b) the second part which belongs exclusively to the brotherhood and includes a wing of cells, a library, a kitchen, a bank, workshops, auxiliary rooms, the chapel of St. Gregory and a courtyard.
All the buildings are traditionally built according to the Athonite architecture. Apart from the above chapel of St. Gregory, the holy retreat has the following chapels: the chapels of Saints Constantine and Helen, the Presentation of the Virgin Mary, the Chapel of St. Xeni, the Chapel of St. Isaac of Syros and the Chapel of the Guardian Angel.
The sisterhood today consists of more than thirty nuns, graduates of higher schools to a large extent, who, apart from their spiritual activities, also develop charitable activities for the needy, large families, the sick and generally our fellow human beings in need of help. They are also entrusted with monastic ministries such as hagiography, (portable icons and murals), sacred art, chrysocentric, publishing spiritual books, making incense, making rosaries, etc. The monastery’s rector is the nun Xeni.
Finally, it is worth noting that the holy hermitage is located almost halfway between Thessaloniki (where the Saint was bishop) and Veroia (where the Saint practiced), the great theologian of the 14th century and father of the hermitage. St. Gregory Palamas.
The monastery celebrates the second Sunday of Lent, which is dedicated to Saint Gregory Palamas.
The monastery is located on the border of the prefectures of Thessaloniki and Pella, 35 km northwest of Thessaloniki.
The text is from the Holy Moni
