Toplou Monastery is a currently active monastery located in a semi-arid area of the Lasithi regional unit, on the eastern part of the island of Crete in Greece. It is about 6 km (3.7 mi) north of Palekastro and 85 km (53 mi) east of Agios Nikolaos. It is at the base of the Itanos promontory from which Cape Sidero, the easternmost point of Crete, projects to the northeast. The nearest settlements are Sitia to the west and Palaikastro to the southeast; otherwise, the entire promontory in uninhabited except for the modern military reservation at the tip of the cape.
Believed to have been founded as early as the 14th century, the monastery was placed on the upper southern slope of Moni Toplou Gorge (named after it), a tortuous, geologically and ecologically interesting ravine exiting into the Sea of Crete through a boulder-strewn declivity called “the Abbott’s Beach” (he paralia tou hegoumenou).[1] Today the ravine is one of the reasons why the whole area has been incorporated into Sitia Geopark. The original placement was made near a copious spring draining into the gorge, now the site of a windmill-driven pump raising water out of the water table below.
The monastery was founded at a time when the classical city of Itanus, former owners of the promontory, was long gone, abandoned centuries earlier, and forgotten by all except the monks, who continued to be interested in the site. The Ottoman Empire had not yet become ascendant. For reasons unknown or not generally published the monastery inherited the entire territory of the ancient city, which it holds today as a major asset. A corporation has been created for its land holdings, “The Public Welfare Foundation of Panagia Akrotiriani,” a subsidiary of the monastery and the Archdiocese of Sitia. The monastery was originally called Panagia Akrotiriani (“Our lady of the Cape),” a name which apparently is still legally meaningful. Its alternative current name, Moni Toplou, literally means “place of the cannon” (Turkish: top), thus called by the Turks for the cannon then mounted over the door.
It had that name since at least 1865, when Thomas Abel Brimage Spratt reported on his survey work in Crete, misrepresenting the name as Greek to plou (“the plou,” whatever “plou” might be).
The monastery has this entire time been economically and politically proactive. The monks, dressed in blue robes, under the direction of the Abbott, run a number of businesses. As the main road from Sitia to Vai runs through the premises, the monastery is open to the public for an entrance fee. Temporary hotel space is also available. Within the main gate are a store and a museum. The museum is a repository for many works of art, containing also collections of manuscripts. On the outside, much of the land around the monastery buildings is used for viticulture and dendriculture. They manufacture and export wine and olive oil. The real estate company is currently negotiating other uses of the promontory, but the chief obstacle is the conservation-minded government. Similarly, the cape is theirs but its use is reserved to the military. Some high points of their political proactivity are their support of resistance to the Ottoman Empire and to the Nazi occupation of Crete.
