Kapsa Monastery

The Kapsa Monastery, officially the Monastery of Agios Ioannis Kapsa, is a Greek Orthodox monastery situated between the villages of Makrys Gialos and Sitia in the west and Goudouras and Ierapetra in the east, on the southeast coast of Crete, Greece. It is built on a steep, rocky mountainside near the exit of the Perivolakia gorge, which overlooks the Libyan Sea. The Kapsa Monastery functions as a monastery for male monks.

Overview

The Kapsa Monastery was most probably established in the fifteenth century, although no exact date of its founding is known. In 1471, Ottoman pirates raided the monastery and destroyed a large part of it. In 1841, it was rebuilt by a famous monk, Joseph Gerakionts who spent his last years in a nearby cave. The Kapsa Monastery is a metochion of the Toplou Monastery. During the Axis occupation of Crete, the monastery often sheltered Greek partisans and allied soldiers of the Allies.
According to a book authored by Richard Wilmott, the monastery was the hidden location during the 1970s of Lord Lucan, a British peer suspected of murder.
The main building is a two-nave church dedicated to St. John the Baptist. A few fragments of Byzantine-era frescoes have survived.