Lesvos is the island of ouzo, olive oil, and sardines, the island of traditional villages, old coffee shops that preserve their distinct character, and hospitable people. Surprisingly, the most beautiful of these villages are not coastal.

Steeped in tradition and flooded with colour, Agiasos, 27km (18mi) from the town of Mytilene, is 460m (1509ft) on the slopes of mount Olympus.

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According to the most reliable theory, its history is relatively short by Greek standards, as it starts 12 centuries ago, in the Byzantine era, during the wars of iconoclasm. That’s when the iconophile priest of the Chapel of the Palaces, Agathon, came from Jerusalem. With him, he had a piece of the True Cross (from the crucifixion), an icon of the Holy Mother, and a handwritten Gospel. He set his hermitage there and the place became renowned among pilgrims all around Lesvos. The hermitage gradually turned into a monastery and the monastery into a settlement. And all thanks to the famous icon of “Panayia I Vrefokratousa” (Madonna and the Holy Infant) with the inscription Meter Theou, Agia Sion, that is, “Mother of God, Holy Sion”. According to tradition, the name Agiasos is a corruption of the inscription.

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