Medikion Monastery

The Monastery of Saint Sergios of Medikion, commonly simply known as the Medikion Monastery (Medikion manastırı), and later as the Monastery of the Holy Fathers is a ruined Byzantine-era monastery near modern Tirilye in Turkey (medieval Trigleia in Bithynia). It is best known for the role its founders played in opposing Byzantine Iconoclasm. Built in 780, it was revered by the local Orthodox population until the Greco-Turkish population exchange in 1922. The only remnants of the monastery complex is the perimeter wall (peribolos), which has a fortress-like appearance with its high walls and solid door. Above the entrance, there is a heavily damaged inscription on which only the date 1801 is legible. The historian Adolphe Hergès, in his Les monastères de Bithynie, indicates that the name Medikios may derive from the name for "cloverleaf" and that the church was referred to in more recent times by the people as "Pateron", that is, "Fathers". Tryphon E. Evangelides and W.M. Ramsay dated the monastery's construction to 810, but Hergès preferred a date around 780. This is now the accepted date. The founder of the monastery was Nikephoros, who restored a ruined church dedicated to Saint Michael and built the monastery around it. Nikephotos served as its first abbot until his death and in 813. N

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