This small Byzantine monastery stands in the Stilaro valley near Bivongi, in a green fold of the Calabrian Serre. It is named for John Theristis, a ninth-century monk from the region whose name means ‘the reaper’.
The monastery grew in the eleventh century and became one of the most important Basilian houses in southern Italy through the Norman period, with a church that mixes Byzantine walls and Norman pilasters supporting a brick dome. Monks left in 1662 and the buildings were abandoned; the commune of Bivongi took them over in 1980. Since 1994 monks from Mount Athos and, from 2008, the Romanian Orthodox Church have lived here again. You can visit, and join the Divine Liturgy.
