THE CHAPEL OF AGIOS DIMITRIOS
The Chapel of Agios Dimitrios is one of the oldest churches of Methana located on the hill close to the village of Kounoupitsa. The church has a post byzantine character and it is worth visiting it for its beautiful frescoes and the old icons. If you ascend to the church, you will have the opportunity to admire panoramic views towards the islands of Aegina and Agistri.
The Chapel of Agios Dimitrios constructed in 1455, two years after the Fall of Constantinople, for the perservation of Christianity in the region. It had got over 100 monks and was a very prominent church. Also it had got battlements and in the years of the Greek war independance (1821) it was a secret meeting place for the fighters and members of the Filiki Eteria (Society of Friends).
It has been declared as Stavropigiaki - meaning that in its foundation it had been built a cross - under the direct jurisdiction of the Patriarch Paisios the 2nd. The March of 1798, during the Ottoman period, the then Patriarch Grigorios the fifth, ratified the jurisdiction of the Patriarch Paisios the 2nd.
The Ottoman period was one of the best periods of the Church -while always being a beacon of Orthodoxy- since the turks had granted many privileges to the Monasteries.
The things changed during the Greek War of Independence with the turks trying many times to burn down the church but without succeeding. It was then that most of the church's monks fled to the Monastery of the Holy Mother in Vidi village and to the Monastery of Poros island. Since then the church of Agios Dimitrios had been abandoned.
In 2005 and after the ruling of the Metropolitan priest of Hydra, Aegina, Trizinia and Ermionis, Mr. Efrem, there has been decided the reconstitution of the Monastery of Agios Dimitrios under the Archbishop of Trizinias, Mr. George Stokos. The required restoration of the church has been begun, to allow its reopening.