Description

The Monastery of Saint Raphael is located close to the village of Thermi and its history is linked to many stories of miracles and supernatural phenomena.

St. Raphael the Newly Appeared Martyr of Lesvos (1410 – 9 April 1463) is an Eastern Orthodox saint martyred by Ottoman soldiers with his companions Sts. Nicholas and Irene (twelve-year-old, tortured and burnt alive) on Bright Tuesday (April 9) of 1463, a decade after the Fall of Constantinople.

For almost five centuries the inhabitants of Lesvos would visit the ruins of a monastery near the village of Thermi, northwest of the capital Mytilene, on Bright Tuesday. These people had forgotten the specific reason for the annual pilgrimage but remembered that Ottoman soldiers had murdered monks in the old monastery there many years ago.

The devout Angelos Rallis chose to construct a chapel by the monastery ruins in 1959. That July 3rd, workers found the holy relics of St. Raphael as they cleared rubble, and shortly thereafter St. Raphael, along with Sts. Nicholas and Irene, started appearing to many Lesvos residents and told them the stories of their lives.