PANAGIA SOUMELA 

According to the tradition of the Orthodox Church, the icon of Panagia Soumela is a work of the Apostle and Evangelist Luke. After his death,  the icon of  Panagia Soumela was brought to Athens and was first called “Panagia Athiniotissa”.

In 386 A.D., two Athenian monks, Barnabas, and his acolyte, Sophronios, founded the Monastery on Mount Mela in Pontos. The icon was found at the end of the fourth century A.D. in a cave at Mt. Mela, and the monastery was built in this very location for the glory of God. The icon was renamed Panagia Soumela.

Etymologically, the name of the icon and the monastery are derived from the name of the mountain on which it is built-Mela. In Greek, “stou mela” means “at Mela,” and in the Pontic dialect, it is pronounced “sou Mela.” Therefore, it is the Panagia at the Mountain called Mela.

The Monastery of Soumela, which had been founded in the 4th century by a Pontian Monk Christopher of Trepizond, suffered destruction and renovations through the long and turbulent history of Pontos, but the icon of Panagia remained intact.  The Monastery  was at its peak during the era of the Byzantine Empire of Trepizond, when it became the spiritual center of Orthodox Hellenism acquiring special privileges from the Komnenoi Emperors. In 1682 and for decades that followed, the monastery housed the Phrontestirion of Trapezounta, a well-known Greek educational institution. Until the Russian occupation of Trabzon (1916-1918), the monastery was active and was visited by Christian and Muslim pilgrimages. Panagia Soumela remained a spiritual symbol for the Pontian Hellenes for almost sixteen centuries. 

During the First World War the Monastery was destroyed, but the holy icon of Panagia Soumela remained intact. When in 1922 the Greeks of Pontos were violently expelled from Pontos the monks hid the icon with other valuable vessels in the rocks of mount Mela. Years later, following negotiations between the governments of Greece and Turkey (Venizelos and Inonou), the monk Ambrosios was granted approval to visit the ruined Monastery of Soumela and retrieve the Holy Icon and the rest of church valuables and bring them to Athens. In 1951, the Holy Icon of Panagia Soumela, that had been kept in the Byzantine Museum of Athens, was transferred to the new Monastery of Soumela that was constructed on one of the slopes of Mount Vermion, Macedonia where it is kept today.