General information
Located 5 km southwest from Kryoneri and 17 kilometers southwest of the ancient Sikyon, is the “Virgin Mary” Monastery Lechova. It was built on the foothills of Titan (Vesiza) mountain at an altitude of 1050 meters. The monastery currently serves as a nunnery, inhabited by about 10 nuns.
According to some experts, the name “Lechova” is of Slavic origin and means “place of green pasture, plain”. Others, however, believe that the term derives from ancient Greek and refers to a woman who has just given birth (Lecho / Λεχώ). The second assumption is based on the fact that, in the past, in the place of the monastery, there was an Asclepios sanatorium of ancient Titani with an obstetrics-gynecology center, where women came to give birth.
The monastery has had a Byzantine church since the 14th century A.D., in the shape of a cross, squared, with a two-columned, octagonal dome that rests on two pillars and two pilasters. A chapel can be found on the southern most side of the monastery. It is said to date back to the 11th century A.D. and its floor is covered in marble mosaics.
Our lady Lechovitissa
In the monastery, hangs a portrait of “Our Lady Lechovitissa”, also named the “Virgin of the Passion” or “Virgin Amolyntos”. It was painted by Theodore Zakynthian Papantonis, the so-called Georgantas, a famous iconographer in the 17th century A.D., when the monastery was also renovated.
The icon was stolen from the monastery in the 1980’s and cut into four pieces for illegal transportation abroad. After Interpol’s intervention, the painting was returned to Greece for renovation.
