# The Sky Monastery

A lavra on the Broad Rock, above the sea of cloud

Climb the stair to a living house on a pillar of rock. Its brethren keep the offices, bake the bread, copy books and tend the vines through a day that never stops. Then read of Meteora in Thessaly, where monks have lived on such rocks since the fourteenth century.

[Walk in Climb the last of the stair and go through the gate.](https://skymonastery.com/walk/)
[Begin with the ascent How anyone ever got up: the net, the windlass and the stair.](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/ascent/)

What is happening in the house at this moment (the hour, the office being kept, the next meal, the season): [/now.md](https://skymonastery.com/now.md).

The ascent

## At Meteora, travellers were hauled up the cliff in a net

![The windlass in the Sky Monastery's winch tower, the roof cut away, its hoist door open on the air](https://skymonastery.com/site/house-winch.webp)

**The winch tower of the Sky Monastery** The great windlass of the stores. What the house cannot grow comes up forty-six metres of rope in the net.
[Stand there now ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=stores)

![Engraving of a Meteora monastery on its rock, with a timber hoist house overhanging a cliff in the foreground](https://skymonastery.com/site/plate-wordsworth-monastery.webp)

**The tower of the windlass at Meteora** A hoist house hangs over the cliff at the left of this plate from Christopher Wordsworth's *Greece*, in the edition of 1882.
[Read the ascent ›](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/ascent/)

## The essays

![The gatehouse of the Sky Monastery, cut open](https://skymonastery.com/site/house-gate.webp)

### [The ascent](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/ascent/)

**In the house:** the gate stair and the winch tower.

**At Meteora:** the net, the windlass and the capstan.

[Stand there now ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=gate)

![The gilded icon screen of the katholikon](https://skymonastery.com/site/house-katholikon.webp)

### [The church](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/church/)

**In the house:** the Katholikon of the Transfiguration and the phiale.

**At Meteora:** four columns, a dome, and the painted walls.

[Stand there now ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=katholikon)

![The ossuary under the church, its shelves of skulls behind iron grilles](https://skymonastery.com/site/house-ossuary.webp)

### [The bones](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/bones/)

**In the house:** the vestibule of the tombs, the ossuary and the crypt.

**At Meteora and Athos:** three years in the earth, then a name on the brow.

[Stand there now ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=ossuary)

![The bell tower and its great dial](https://skymonastery.com/site/house-clock.webp)

### [The hours](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/hours/)

**In the house:** the house clock, the bells and the board of notices.

**At Meteora and Athos:** the wooden board, the iron hoop and the call at midnight.

[Stand there now ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=clock)

![The Hall of Wisdom, the library with its long table and globes](https://skymonastery.com/site/house-library.webp)

### [The books](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/books/)

**In the house:** the scriptorium and the Hall of Wisdom.

**At Meteora:** a library behind a cupboard, and the Gospels sold and given back.

[Stand there now ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=library)

![The refectory tables laid under painted saints](https://skymonastery.com/site/house-refectory.webp)

### [Bread and wine](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/table/)

**In the house:** the Great Hall, the kitchen, the bakehouse and the winery.

**At Meteora and Athos:** a kitchen all chimney, a table in an apse, a great barrel.

[Stand there now ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=refectory)

![The old hermits' house on the ledge, one cell and a walled yard](https://skymonastery.com/site/house-hermits.webp)

### [The hermits](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/hermits/)

**In the house:** the old hermits' house and the hermits' path.

**At Meteora:** the men who lived in the caves before the monasteries.

[Stand there now ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=hermits)

![The vineyard rows either side of the vine walk](https://skymonastery.com/site/house-vineyard.webp)

### [The year](https://skymonastery.com/meteora/year/)

**In the house:** the vineyard and the kitchen garden through their seasons.

**At Athos and Meteora:** a feast on a mountain top, and the fast at the abbot's table.

[Stand there now ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=vineyard)

![Lithograph of a dark pillar of rock at Meteora with a net hanging on a rope from the monastery at its top](https://skymonastery.com/site/plate-dupre1827.webp)

> “They began slowly ascending into the air, twisting round and round like a leg of mutton hanging to a bottle-jack. The rope was old and mended, and the height from the ground to the door above was, we afterwards learned, 37 fathoms, or 222 feet.”
>
> — Robert Curzon at the monastery of Barlaam, *Visits to Monasteries in the Levant*, 1849. The lithograph is by Louis Dupré, 1827. [See our net come up ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/?place=stores)

## The travellers

Before photographs, Meteora reached the world in the sketchbooks of those who made the journey.

![Engraving of the monastery of Barlaam on its rock above a ravine](https://skymonastery.com/site/plate-hughes1820.webp)

**Monastery of Barlaam, on one of the rocks of Meteora**T. S. Hughes, 1820.

![Lithograph of a pillar of rock with a net hanging from the monastery](https://skymonastery.com/site/plate-dupre1827.webp)

**Meteora**Louis Dupré, lithograph, 1827.

![Engraving of the monastery of St Barlaam on its pillar, travellers below](https://skymonastery.com/site/plate-curzon-barlaam.webp)

**View of the monastery of St Barlaam, at Meteora**Robert Curzon, 1849.

![Engraving of the great monastery of Meteora seen across the pillars](https://skymonastery.com/site/plate-curzon-great.webp)

**The Great Monastery of Meteora, from the monastery of Barlaam**Robert Curzon, 1849, from a drawing made on the spot by Viscount Eastnor.

![Engraving of a monastery perched on a cliff at Meteora](https://skymonastery.com/site/plate-wordsworth-cliffs.webp)

**Cliffs at Meteora**Christopher Wordsworth, *Greece*, edition of 1882.

![Engraving of the valley and pillars of Meteora](https://skymonastery.com/site/plate-wordsworth-general.webp)

**General view of Meteora**Christopher Wordsworth, *Greece*, edition of 1882.

![Coloured lithograph of the rocks of Meteora rising over the plain](https://skymonastery.com/site/plate-stackelberg.webp)

## The six houses that remain

Six monasteries still keep the hours on the rocks: the Great Meteoron, Varlaam, Roussanou, St Nicholas Anapafsas, St Stephen and Holy Trinity. Each as a traveller found it in 1849.

[The six houses ›](https://skymonastery.com/monasteries/)

They are living communities, not museums. For their hours and what they ask of guests, go to each house's own word.

Lithograph after O. M. von Stackelberg, 19th century.

## The gate is open. The porter keeps water and bread at his window.

[Walk in ›](https://skymonastery.com/walk/)

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Walk a living monastery on a pillar of rock above the cloud, and read of Meteora in Thessaly, where monks have lived on such rocks since the fourteenth century.

This page: https://skymonastery.com/ · All pages: https://skymonastery.com/llms.txt · Walk into the Sky Monastery: https://skymonastery.com/walk/