The Municipality of Prousos was a Kapodistrian municipality and now a municipal unit of the Kallikratiki municipality of Karpenisi. It is located in the southwest of the prefecture of Evritania and was based in the village of Prousos. It was a mountainous municipality and bordered the prefecture of Etoloakarnania. According to the 2001 census, the municipality had a total of 2,253 inhabitants and an area of 146,680 acres.
The land around Prousos is rather hilly in the southwest, but in
the northeast it is mountainous. The highest point in the area has
an elevation of 1,312 meters and is 1.0 km west of Prousos. There
are about 21 people per square kilometer around Prousos relatively
small population. The nearest larger town is Thérmo, 18.0 km south
of Prousos. The area around Prousos is almost completely covered
with mixed forest. In the region around Proussos, mountains are
unusually common.
Prousos has a Mediterranean climate. The
average temperature is 13 ° C. The warmest month is August, at 25 °
C, and the coldest February, at 3 ° C. The average rainfall is 1,079
millimeters per year. The wettest month is February, with 184
millimeters of rain, and the wettest August, with 6 millimeters.
Prousos Monastery
Prousos Monastery is a monastery in the
Prefecture of Evritania. It is located 31 km south of Karpenisi and
53 northeast of Agrinio, 2 km from the homonymous village and is a
spiritual and pilgrimage center of the whole area. It is built on a
steep, rocky area between the mountains of Helidona, Kaliakouda and
the Panaitolikos mountain range, which is overgrown with fir trees.
The Holy Monastery of Prousos is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and
celebrates on the 23rd of August (at the Assumption).
In the 10th century the efforts of the Byzantine
Empire for Christianization and assimilation of the barbaric peoples
of the empire intensified. Two adventurous monks, Dionysius and
Timothy, following the orders of the emperor and the patriarchate,
arrived at this wild place with the scattered pastoral populations,
enthusiastic and with the purpose of their lives to make the
inhabitants Christians. In order for the new religion to be
accepted, they set up a shrine and settled in the area, where the
ode of Odysseus no longer existed for many centuries. While there,
they lit a torch permanently.
Due to this torch, the
monastery that was built there in the 12th century was named
"Monastery of Pyrsos" ("Orthodox Synaxaristis": Meeting of the
Virgin Mary "in the Fire of Evrytania" on August 22-23). In 1587 the
katholikon was destroyed by fire. Immediately after, it was rebuilt
and decorated with murals. Then, around 1600, the icon of the Virgin
Mary was made.
Because over the centuries the name was
changed from "Pyrsou", "Bursou" which sounded bad, in 1845 the
monastery and the village were officially renamed Prousos Monastery
and Prousos respectively (Government Gazette, Law KE of December 5,
1845).
The monastery remained active all the years that
followed, although its reputation was not very high, due to the
inaccessibility of the area. In 1748 the monastery became
Stavropegian.
Revolution of 1821
A few years before the
national uprising of 1821, the Mount Athos spiritual leader Cyril
Kastanofyllis was sent to the monastery as abbot. He was a member of
the Friendly Society and the pretext was to correct his supposed
spiritual and moral decline. Immediately and on the basis of a plan,
he organized and operated the "School of Greek Letters" (1818-1828).
The monastery was a center of political guidance of the
liberation struggle (there are letters from Mavrokordatos etc.). He
played a critical role in the whole management of the siege of
Messolonghi but also in the salvation of many after the destruction
of the "Exodus". It functioned throughout the race as a healing and
convalescent home for the wounded.
Karaiskakis had his
headquarters in the monastery. In fact, General Karaiskakis donated
the silver cover of the icon as a sign of gratitude for the warmth,
which afflicted him and from which he was healed during his stay at
the Monastery. The Sacristy of the Monastery today has the weapons
of Karaiskakis.
Much of the monastery was burned by the
Germans on August 16, 1944, because it was a support center for the
guerrillas of the Resistance. Many relics, utensils, manuscripts and
books were destroyed, but not the precious image of the Virgin Mary,
which had been placed in a crypt.
After the Civil War, the
reconstruction of the Monastery by the abbot Germanos began again,
which continued in the 1970s by the then abbot of the monastery and
later abbot of the Holy Monastery of Docheiariou of Mount Athos.
According to tradition, the name of the Monastery
is due to the miraculous icon of "Panagia Prousiotissa". This image
originates from Bursa in Asia Minor and is believed to be the work
of the Evangelist Luke.
The Monastery in Bursa was founded in
the 9th century. At that time the emperor of Byzantium was
Theophilos (829-842), who was an iconoclast. The icon of the Virgin
Mary was in a temple in Bursa, but for fear that it would be
destroyed by decree of the emperor, he fled to Central Greece.
Tradition connects the shelter of the icon, the current location
of the Monastery, with miracles that happened during the transfer of
the icon there. The young man who transported her, together with one
of his servants, decided to establish a monastery at this point as
they found it impossible to move the image from there. They
themselves became the first monks, with the names Dionysios and
Timotheos.
The Holy Monastery of Prousos is one of
the few monasteries that survive in Evritania. Its katholikon is an
interesting church, cruciform with a dome. To the west, at the root
of the rock, there is a crypt shaped like a chapel. The surviving
frescoes were painted around 1785. Inside the crypt, 13th century
frescoes are preserved on the outside, while inside there are two
layers, one of which dates back to 1518. The wood-carved iconostasis
of the crypt, which dates to 1810, is also very remarkable. .
The Treasury of the Monastery contains a number of valuable
manuscript Codes, icons, sacred vessels, reliquaries and books.
There is an interesting museum in the monastery with some of the
treasures, such as icons from the 15th and 16th century, holy
vestments, silver and gold chalice, handwritten codes, printed books
and the sword of Karaiskakis.
Outside the monastery there are
two castles on the left and right, the "towers of Karaiskakis".
There is also a small church of Agios Pantos, built in 1754.
Finally, the building that housed during the Turkish occupation the
"School of Greek Letters" that operated in the Monastery is
preserved.