Panagia Soumela is a monastery near Trabzon, a symbol of 16 centuries of Pontian Hellenism. According to tradition, in 386 the Athenian monks Barnabas and Sophronios were led to the deceptive mountain peaks of Pontus after the revelation of the Virgin Mary, in order to establish her solitary abode. There, in a cave on the steep slope of the mountain, at an altitude of 1063 meters, the holy icon of Panagia Atheniotissa was transported by angels, which, always according to tradition, was illustrated by the Evangelist Luke.
The monks Barnabas and Sophronios built a cell with the support of the neighboring monastery of Baselona and then a church inside the cave, to which the icon had been miraculously transferred. The serious problem of water supply of the monastery was solved, also according to tradition, in a miraculous way. Human reason is unable to respond to the spectacle that even today’s pilgrims see, gushing holy water through a granite rock. Its healing properties made the monastery famous not only to Christians, but also to Muslims who still continue to visit it and ask for the grace of the Virgin Mary. Near the cave was built in 1860 a panoramic four-storey guest house of 72 rooms and other functional spaces for the needs of the pilgrims, as well as a library. Small temples dedicated to various saints were rebuilt around the monastery. The founders of the monastery continued their activities outside the pilgrimage site. At a distance of 12 kilometers from the monastery, opposite the village of Skalita, they built the church of Agios Konstantinos and Eleni and at a distance of two kilometers the chapel of Agia Varvara, in which the monks in 1922 hid the image of Megalohari, the cross of the emperor DG of Komnenos and the manuscript Gospel of Saint Christopher.
The monastery from time to time suffered from the raids of the unbelievers and the thieves, because of the fame and the wealth that it acquired. Some incidents are also associated with miraculous interventions of the Virgin Mary for the salvation of the monastery. In some of these raids it was looted by robbers and, according to tradition, destroyed, to be rebuilt by Trabzon Saint Christopher in 644. The monastery was endowed with great wealth and many privileges, estates, votive offerings and heirlooms by the emperors of Byzantium and later mainly the emperors of Trebizond John B. Komnenos (1285-1293), Alexios B. Komnenos (1293-1330), Basil (1332-1340). Great benefactors of the monastery were Manuel III Komnenos (1390-1417), and Alexios III (1349-1390).
The first one offered to the monastery of invaluable value a Cross with precious wood, which today, after many adventures, is together with the other relics of the monastery on its new throne, in Kastania of Veria. Alexios GD (1349-1390), who was saved by Megalohari from a great storm and helped him defeat her enemies, as a sign of gratitude he fortified it well, built towers, new cells and renovated its old buildings. It gave it 48 villages and installed 40 permanent guards for its security. He generally offered so much that he was proclaimed by the monks as the “new Founder”. Until 1650, the following iambic inscription was preserved outside the gate of the temple: μ.X.) INΔ IΓ΄ ».
Many of the privileges granted by the Komnenians to the monastery were ratified and extended during the Turkish occupation with sultan’s firmans and patriarchal sigils. The sultans Bayezid II, Selim I, Murat III, Selim II, Ibrahim A, Muhammad IV, Suleiman II, Mustafa II, Ahmed III, are listed in the codes of the monastery as benefactors. The favor which the emperors showed to a great extent to the monastery is a consequence not only of religiosity, but also of a personal perception of the divine intervention. Characteristic is, as mentioned above, the miraculous rescue of Alexios DG, from a terrible shipwreck. But the sultans who benefited the monastery also had personal experiences of the miracles performed by Panagia Soumela.
The case of Sultan Selim A΄ is mentioned, who was cured of a serious illness with the help of the sanctification of the monastery. Valuable documents and many ancient manuscripts were kept in the library of the monastery, until the uprooting. In 1868, the researcher Savvas Ioannidis found the first Greek manuscript of Digenis Akritas in the library of the monastery. The monasteries of Pontus suffered from the barbaric and disrespectful behavior of the Neo-Turks and the Kemalists, who fanatized the savage and predatory Muslim groups. Many times they fell victim to robberies and disasters. In 1922 the Turks completely destroyed the monastery. After first robbing all the valuables that were inside the monastery, then they set fire, to erase the traces of their crimes or to satisfy their hatred against the Greeks. Before the forced exodus in 1923, the monks hid in the chapel of St. Barbara the icon of the Virgin Mary, the gospel of Saint Christopher and the cross of the emperor of Trebizond, Manuel Komnenos. Through the actions of the Prime Minister of Greece Eleftherios Venizelos, in 1930, when within the framework of the then promoted Greek-Turkish friendship, the Turkish Prime Minister Ismet Inonou visited Athens, he received a delegation to go to Pontus and receive the symbols of Greek Orthodoxy.
In 1930 only two monks of the ancient historical monastery lived. The elderly Jeremiah in Langadas, Thessaloniki, who refused to go because his feet could not hear him, or because he did not want to relive the nightmarish scenes of Turkish barbarism and the beautiful, lively and lively Ambrosios Soumeliotis, head of the church of Agios Theras Toumpas in Thessaloniki. From the monk Jeremiah, Ambrose learned the crypt of priceless heirlooms. On October 14, Ambrose left with a flattering document from the Turkish embassy in Istanbul and from there to Trabzon to Panagia Soumela. A few days later he returned to Athens not only with our symbols, but also with Pontus, as the then Minister of Welfare of the government of Eleftherios Venizelos Leonidas Iasonidis had written: “In Greece there were Pontians, but there was no Pontus. With the image of Panagia Soumela, Pontos also came”.
SOURCE: kotsari.com