Monastery of Rousanou
Address
Meteora, Kalambaka 422 00
GPS
39.721742014969, 21.63188486826
Rousanou Monastery is located on the road from the village of Kastraki to Meteora. It is one of the six active monasteries of Meteora, which have been included in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1988.
It is built on a vertical columnar rock and its building complex covers the entire plateau of its summit. The ascent to the monastery was previously done by a winding staircase, while today there are concrete steps and two small footbridges.
The origin of the name Rousanou is unknown, with the most likely theory being that it took its name from the first settler of the rock or the founder of the first church. The rock was known as the Rousanou rock since the early 16th century.
The first known founders of the monastery were the Ioasaph and Maximos monks from Giannitsa. Between 1527 and 1529 they requested and received permission to settle on the rock of Rousanos. During the 1980s, the Rousanos monastery was restored and radically renovated by the Archaeological Service of the region. Today it operates as a nunnery.
