Monastery of Agios Savvas on Kalymnos

The Monastery of Agios Savvas is located high above Pothia town, it can not be missed thanks to the huge cross that is placed outside, visible from the entire neighbourhood. If you should happen to miss the cross during the daytime, you surely will not miss it at night when it is lit blue.

The nunnery of Agios Savvas is located under the white arrow.

Agios Savvas Monastery is large and visible from all over Pothia.

The monastery is named after the monk Agios Savvas who is buried in a coffin made of silver inside the church. Savvas was a man who had the gift to cure people from all kinds of diseases. The church is beautifully decorated from floor to ceiling. However, it is not the church that makes the monastery worth visiting. It is the view of Pothia town that is the great reward, a fantastic view, and you can not see enough of it.

View of Pothia and Chora from Agios Savvas.

View of the port of Pothia from Agios Savvas.

When you get tired of the view, you can go into the monastery and look into the prayer rooms to the left. One of the rooms is for couples who have difficulties having children. Here, they pray to God, or to Agios Savvas, for help. Childless couples have left little baby dolls in the room. In the next prayer room are lots of things that people have left, among other things there are two X-rays of a woman's brain. Read more about it below.

Inside the church where Agios Savvas is buried.

The coffin where Agios Savvas lies and rests.

It is, of course, a story behind the X-ray pictures.

A woman was told that she suffered from incurable brain cancer. The tumour appeared on a x-ray picture taken at a hospital in Thessaloniki. There was no cure to get. As a last change she decided to visit Agios Savvas to ask for help. The woman came to the monastery and prayed her prayers, and soon after she went back to the hospital where they took new x-ray pictures.

The tumour turned out to be gone. However it is with the degree of truth of this story, there are X-ray pictures on display in the prayer room. One X-ray picture shows the brain before the prayers and one show how the brain looks after the prayers, without tumour. The X-ray pictures are even sold as postcards.

One of the X-rays from the woman's brain can be seen under the white arrow.

There is a strict dress code for visiting the church. There are clothes to borrow.

The church belonging to the nunnery of Agios Savvas

This is how you look with borrowed clothes.

On the way to the monastery lies a very nice folk museum where you can become absorb in the history of the everyday life on Kalymnos. All signs are in Greek, but there are guided tours in English.

The Folk Museum located before Agios Savvas.

The cute little folk museum.

WHAT YOU MUST NOT MISS WHEN YOU VISIT AGIOS SAVVAS

Don't miss Vlychadia, which you can read about here »

READ MORE ABOUT KALYMNOS