In July 1935, excavations carried out in a rural area of Skopelos Geras brought to light the ruins of a monastery, which had been built by St. Gregory bishop of Assos, as well as the tomb with his bones. The area around the foothills of Mount Brigianiou (Priantos), which stretches towards the shores of the southern beaches (Tarti, Chilia, Fara etc.) shows a timeless human presence, as there are scattered abundant ceramic findings from the Roman and Byzantine era.
According to tradition, Saint Gregory was honored even by the Ottomans during the Ottoman occupation, who owned the olive groves in the area until 1922. Knowing the approximate location of the saint’s grave, they lit a candle calling the saint “Sijak Baba. Saint Gregory lived in the 12th century, he came from the village of Acorni in Gera (today’s rural location of Karkouta) and at the age of 14 he left for Polis to study, from where he followed the monastic life and subsequently became the bishop of Assos. At the end of his life he resigned from the high priesthood and returned at the age of 50 to Gera, living ascetically in a cave with his companion Leontius, on Mount Priandos. Then he founded a church in honor of the Virgin Mary, which became the Catholic monastery, which he himself created in “a difficult, hilly and wild place called Mikron Lefkopedi”, where he died at the age of 62. In the small church there is an ancient piece with decorations perhaps an altar, while inside there is a water tank with a step, which was probably the bath of an ancient building to which it belonged, apart from the lintel, and the Doric capital in second use in the Byzantine temple excavated next to it by the Metropolitan of Mytilene Iakovos in 1935.
The Monastery of Ag. Grigoriou is mentioned in the same patriarchal letter of 1246 together with the Monastery of Ariston in the diocese of Gera. Next to the plane-covered area stands the Byzantine church, inside which the bones of the saint were found in a tomb. The temple is triangular and probably had a dome supported by two pessos of the step and two columns. There are several marble members, such as capitals, breastplates, pediments, etc. The remains of Saint Gregory were transferred and are kept in Holy church Saint George of Skopelos.
It is a beautiful landscape, full of historical traces and questions.
