Monastery of Panagia Kosmosotira Date - Timespan: Middle Byzantine Era 8th - 12th century AD
In the center of the modern town of Pherai (the Byzantine Vera), in the Evros prefecture of Greece, there is the Church of Virgin as the savior of the universe (or Panagia Kosmosoteira). It was built on a small hill, near the ancient via Egnatia, facing River Evros, thus, in a very important strategic position.
Today only the main church (katholikon) and some ruins of a fortified precinct remain from the original bigger complex. It was a homonymous monastery, dedicated to the Virgin Mary and founded by the Sebastokrator (crown prince) Isaakios Komnenos (born in 1093), son of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos. This monastery became the starting point in the area of a whole settlement, named Vera.
In 1151/52 AD Isaakios Komnenos launched his monastic complex and drew up its Typikon, the monastic charter, a document regulating life in the monastery. An inserted, in the wall, single-headed eagle has prompted scientists to argue that the church, and specifically its northwest corner, was home to the tomb of Isaakios Komnenos, as stated in the Typikon. The tombstone possibly of the monastery’s founder was found there and it is now kept in the Ecclesiastical Museum of Alexandroupolis.
The Typikon is a text-witness, thanks to which we know the operational status of the monastery's assets and the general formation of this Komnenian monastic institution. Moreover, it contains information on the site and the region. Isaakios at this document proclaimed the Monastery as "totally free", without being subject to any authority, either royal or patriarchal, but also without defining any trustee from his generation and his heirs. According to the text the monks had to eat at the same table all together, the same food, drink the same wine, wear the same clothes and shoes without any exception not even for the abbot. A special diet could be arranged only for sick monks.
The charter, along with some archaeological findings, gives us information about the founder’s tomb, too. Although Isaakios had first chosen as his final resting place the Chora monastery in Constantinople (which he extensively rebuilt), at the Typikon he mentions his change of will. However, the form and the exact location of the tomb in Kosmosoteira are not known for sure. It is supposed to have been located in the northwest corner apartment, being separated from the rest of the church by a railing. A marble slab with a funerary inscription that might be the lid of the grave is now kept at the Ecclesiastical Museum of Alexandroupolis.
In architectural terms, the church is a variation of the five-domed cross-in-square type, which comes from Constantinople. It has an almost square plan, 17 by 20 meters, with thin coupled columns (to the west) and thick walls (to the east) separating the corner bays from the naos. The walls of the church are built with local stone, courses of brick in the recessed built technique and wooden chains. Some areas have been repaired in rubble masonry. All walls, lunettes, dome drums are pierced with window openings, letting natural light into the church. Small parts of the original windows have been preserved in the southeastern dome. In addition, in various areas of the external walls there is ornamental brickwork, such as fret pattern, W-shaped chevron pattern and an eagle made of brick.
As for the roofing of the church, there are four small domes above the corner compartments, barrel vaults over the four arms of the cross and the main dome, about 7 m. in diameter rising up to 11 m. Moreover, there have been probably an exonarthex to the north, west and south sides of the church, maybe of light construction. This ambulatory, where special burials would be located, is also mentioned in the Typikon.
Recent scientific studies showed that generally the design of the katholikon was based on Pythagorean asymmetrical numbers. The Church of the Kosmosoteira is one of the few churches that have a maximum height-width ratio of 1:1, a ratio which since antiquity has symbolized the most ideal form and the harmony of the world.
The iconographic decoration is a specimen of high quality painting of the School of Constantinople, dated to the 12th century. The mural paintings in Kosmosoteira are the work of a team of painters brought there by its royal founder, most probably from the School of Constantinople, the tradition of which is followed. Nevertheless some unique features in both iconography and arrangement do exist.
The church was originally fully covered with paintings. Today the major murals comprise the following representations: a) in the north and south walls of the cross arms one can see hierarchs, prophets, military saints, b) above the pairs of columns, the Annunciation and the Presentation in the Temple, while c) it is not clear how the central dome was decorated, since the Turkish plaster has not been removed; the four minor domes have Christ (southwest), Virgin Mary (northwest) and Archangels (north and southeast) in their crown.
Among the mural paintings the four military saints stand out, firstly, for their size, placement and lack of inscriptions and, secondly, because of their unusual facial features that make them resemble members of the founder’s royal family and Isaakios himself. In general the large dimensions and the calm movements of the figures render them closer to the classical tradition and the human condition than other contemporary art.
As for the architectural sculpture of the church, it comprises the paired columns and the marble chancel screen of the bema (iconostasis). All the parts of the columns, bases, shafts, capitals and abaci are spolia, elements from other older buildings. The capitals and abaci were covered with plaster and resurfaced, probably due to original imperfections. Only small decorated fragments of the original chancel screen have survived, which are incorporated in the modern one. On the whole, all the church’s elements correspond to the characteristic style of the Komnenian era.
Apart from the Kosmosoteira church we see today, Isaakios mentions in his Typikon the following buildings in his monastery: cells for the monks, baths, storerooms, a treasury, a library, cisterns, a hostel for visitors, stables, mills, chapels, oratories, walls etc. From all these only some parts of the fortification wall and towers survive, which might be dated to the 14th century, later than the initial construction of the monastery.
The monastery was highly valued as a notable monastic center, but by 1355 it was no longer functioning, probably due to the struggles with the Bulgarians and the Turks for control over the region. Its enclosure was found to be inhabited by peasants, while finally Vera fell to the Ottomans in 1373.
Around then, they converted the church into the mosque of Suleyman and made some changes like
a) the cover-up of the frescoes with plaster,
b) the opening of two new entrances to the north and south façade,
c) the opening of a window on the west side,
d) the raising of the drums of the domes and the leveling of their cornice with the addition of dogtooth brickwork,
e) the blocking of the eastern windows and various other reparative works.
Moreover, a lower agricultural settlement was developed to the east and south of the fortress of Vera after its conquest, known as Ferecik. Parts of the aqueduct of this settlement survive today.
When the Western Thrace was annexed to the Greek state (1920), the building was again converted into a Christian church. The latest works in the monument were related to its conservation. They began in the 1920s and continued in the end of the 20th century. During these necessary works for the solidity of the church a) the four large buttresses on the south and north sides were built, b) the dome and the columns were reinforced, c) the lead cladding of the roof was replaced and d) the monument was cleaned from newer and insecure mortars.
Today Kosmosoteira has been proclaimed as patroness of the Thracians and its church is considered a pilgrimage center.
The monument was selected to be 3D digitised within the framework of the European Commission funded 3D-ICONS project by the Athena RC Xanthi's Division. It's exterior was captured in 3D using the Structure-From-Motion (SFM)
and Dense Multi-View 3D Reconstruction (DMVR) methods. Aerial and terrestrial photoshooting sessions were performed during the winter of 2014 always during cloudy days. A total of four digitisation
sessions were performed where each resulted a number of image sequences presenting the monument from different points of views. The terrestrial photoshooting sessions were implemented using camera tripods
and custom monopods (3m-9m adaptive). We attempted to keep the distance between two terrestrial photoshooting points at 60cm. All aerial photoshooting was performed using a custom hexacopter equipped with gimbal remote controlled two axis tilt-roll camera base, first-person view (FPV) and GPS.
A pair of Samsung NX1000 20MP compact DSLR cameras with fixed 16mm and 20-50mm lenses were used. Agisoft PhotoScan (ver. 1.1) has been used for the production of monument's 3D digital replica. Although, flight paths were designed they
have been performed manually due to bad GPS reception (high buildings around the monument). Furthermore, the calibration of the cameras was performed by the software itself. A total of 3900 photos were used to generated the 3D model. The processing of the image sequences was performed on two computer systems (CPU IntelCoreI74820K 3.7Ghz, 64GB RAM, Radeon R9 290X,
Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit).
Additionally, TOF laser scanning and empirical measurements between strong (in terms of visibility) feature points on the surface of the monument were performed and used to scale the 3D model.
Low Resolution Model: 90K Facets - Image Texture Size:2048^2 Medium Resolution Model: 300K Facets - Image Texture Size:4096^2 High Resolution Model: 1M Facets - Image Texture Size:8192^2 Resolution: ~3cm (between consecutive points distance in raw data model)
For higher resolution versions of the digital replica (raw data) please contact Dr. Anestis Koutsoudis at akoutsou at ceti dot gr.
Η γενεαλογία των Κομνηνών, Τόμος Α΄, Βάρζος Κ.,Κέντρο Βυζαντινών Ερευνών, Θεσσαλονίκη,1984, σελ.238-254
Βυζαντινό οδοιπορικό στη Θράκη, Ζήκος Ν., Αρχαιολογία και Τέχνες, 13,1984, σελ.71-77
Παρατηρήσεις σε παραστάσεις ιεραρχών στο καθολικό της Μονής Παναγίας Κοσμοσώτειρας στη Βήρα, Κωνσταντινίδη Χ.,1st International Symposium for Thracian Studies Byzantine Thrace: Image and Character, Komotini,1989, Byzantinische Forschungen, 14/1-2, σελ. 49-50, πιν.97-102
H αρχαιολογική έρευνα των Παλαιοχριστιανικών και Βυζαντινών μνημείων στη Θράκη. Συμπεράσματα και προοπτικές, Μπακιρτζής Χ., Η Ιστορική, Αρχαιολογική και Λαογραφική ΄Ερευνα για τη Θράκη, Θεσσαλονίκη, 1988, Ξάνθη, Κομοτηνή, Αλεξανδρούπολη, 5-9 Δεκεμβρίου 1985, (Αφιέρωμα στο Γ. Μπακαλάκη), σελ. 175-185
Στρατιωτικοί άγιοι ή μέλη της οικογένειας του Αλεξίου Α΄ Κομνηνού, Μπακιρτζής Χ.,Δέκατο τρίτο συμπόσιο βυζαντινής και μεταβυζαντινής αρχαιολογίας και τέχνης, Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών, Αθήνα, 1993, σελ. 35
Ο εσωτερικός χώρος και το μυστικό νόημα της τοιχοδομίας στην Κοσμοσώτειρας, Μπακιρτζής Χ., Γνωριμία 18, 1977, σελ. 6-11
Τα βυζαντινά μνημεία της Βήρας, Ορλάνδος Α.Κ., Θρακικά 4, 1933, σελ. 3-34
Προσθήκαι εις τα περί του βυζαντινού ναού της Θρακικής Βήρας, Ορλάνδος Α.Κ., Αρχείον Θρακικού Λαογραφικού και Γλωσσικού Θησαυρού, Επίμετρον ΣΤ' Τόμου, «Επιτύμβιον Χρήστου Τσούντα», 1941, σελ. 500-503
Τυπικόν Ισαακίου Αλεξίου Κομνηνού της Μονής Θεοτόκου της Κοσμοσώτειρας (1151/52),Παπάζογλου Γ. Κ., Δημοκρίτειο Πανεπιστήμιο Θράκης, Κομοτηνή, 1994
Η μονή της Κοσμοσώτειρας. Η κτηματική και άλλη περιουσία της, Παπάζογλου Γ. Κ., Β΄ Παγκόσμιο Συνέδριο Θρακών, 15-18 Αυγούστου 1994, Φέρες, 1994
Η Μονή Κοσμοσωτείρας της Βήρας και η ιστορία του οικισμού της κατά τους βυζαντινούς και μεταβυζαντινούς χρόνους, Σίνος Σ., Θρακική Επετηρίδα 7, 1990, σελ. 223-246
Inscriptions byzantines de la Thrace (VIIIe-Xve siècles). Édition et commentaire historique, Asdracha C., Bakirtzis, Ch., Αρχαιολογικόν Δελτίον, 35/Α 1980, 1986, σελ. 261-3
Western Thrace in the Early Christian and Byzantine Periods: Results of Archaeological Research and the Prospects, 1973-1987, Bakirtzis Ch.,1st International Symposium for Thracian Studies Byzantine Thrace: Image and Character, 1989, Komotini, May 28th-31st 1987, Byzantinische Forschungen, 14 1-2 ,pp. 49-50
Warrior Saints or Portraits of Members of the Family of Alexios I Komnenos, Bakirtzis Ch., Mosaic, Festschrift for A.H.S.Megaw, BSA,London,2001, σελ. 85-87
Το φως στο ναό της Κοσμοσώτειρας, Iliadis I., 4th International Symposium on Thracian Studies Byzantine Thrace: evidence and remains, 2011, Komotini, April 18th-22nd 2007, Byzantinische Forschungen, 30, pp. 571-588
The Panagia Kosmosoteira at Pherai (Vira): The natural lighting of the Katholikon, Iliadis I., JÖB, 55, 2005, pp. 229-246
The Byzantine Monuments of the Evros/Meriç River Valley, Ousterhout R., Bakirtzis Ch., European Center for Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments, Thessaloniki, 2007, σελ. 49-85
The Wall-Paintings in the Church of the Virgin Kosmosoteira at Ferai (Vira) and Stylistic Trends in 12th Century Painting, Panayiotidi Μ., 1st International Symposium for Thracian Studies Byzantine Thrace: Image and Character, 2010, Komotini, May 28th-31st 1987, Byzantinische Forschungen, 14-1, σελ. 459-484, πίν. 130-189
La date de la mort du sébastocrator Isaac Comnène et de quelques événements contemporains, Papachryssanthou D. U., Revue des études byzantines, 21, 1963, pp. 250-255
The Tomb of Isaac Komnenos at Pherrai, Ševčenko N., Greek Orthodox Theological Revue, 29, 1984, pp. 135-140
Copyright 2014 Athena Research Centre. All rights reserved. The 3D ICONS project is funded by the European Commissions ICT Policy Support Programme.
For technical enquiries and additional information related to the 3D-ICONS project or the 3D data displayed in this page please contact Dr. Anestis Koutsoudis at akoutsou at ceti dot gr.
