A Flame That Still Burns: Marking 200 Years Since the Holocaust at the Paliomonastiro of Vrontamas

By Dimitri Katsambis

Karitsiotika Nea 

Monday, 15 September 2025

A reminder that history is not a forgotten book, but a legacy that binds us together – and a responsibility we all share.

The Place

Just twenty kilometres from our village, Karitsa, the Old Monastery (Paliomonastiro) clings to the rock face, high above the gorge of the Evrotas River. Like an eagle’s nest, it juts out from the sheer cliffs, its walls merging with the mountain stone. The old folk called it a kastro-monastiri – a fortress-monastery – and with good reason: its natural position is that of a fortress, inaccessible and forbidding.

Stepping inside, you are enveloped in a deep, solemn calm. The walls, blackened by smoke and scarred by time, bear the weight of centuries. Fragments of 12th-century frescoes survive alongside later ones, and around the iconostasis stand some eighty icons – cracked, yet alive with presence. In 1958 the Paliomonastiro was declared a historic monument: a place that belongs both to worship and to collective memory.

15 September 1825 – The Horror

It was the time when Ibrahim swept through Laconia with fire and sword. The villages around Vrontamas had already been burned, and the people of Vrontamas left their homes to seek refuge in the monastery.

For days they held out under siege. The curved walls and the wild terrain gave them hope. But Ibrahim’s soldiers found a way through the roof: they hurled in burning branches and gunpowder. Smoke and flames filled the church.

Some four hundred souls – men, women and children – perished in that inferno. Yet they did not yield. Tradition preserves their words:
“Vrontamites alive will never bow to Turks. Better to burn, than to be enslaved.”

Memory in Song

That tragedy was carried into memory through a folk song still murmured today:

“Three little birds were sitting on the ridge of Kritsova…”

The lament speaks of the loss of the Vrontamites and their fierce defiance of Ibrahim. It shows how, when history is not written on paper, it finds a voice in the memory and song of the people.

Three little birds sit on Kritsova’s ridge,
one looks towards Vrontamas, another towards the river,
the third, the finest, laments and says:

‘Where have the brave folk of Vrontamas gone?
They are neither at a wedding, nor at a festival,
but they are shut inside the Monastery, under siege.’

Ibrahim Pasha passed by and said to them:
‘Come out and bow down – leave the church!’
But they answered him, and replied as one:

‘Curse on you and your faith – may you perish, infidels.
The Vrontamites, while we live, will never bow to Turks.
Better to burn, than to be enslaved.’

The ‘Little Missolonghi’ of Laconia

Since that day, the Paliomonastiro has been more than a church. It is the “Little Missolonghi” of Laconia – a sacred monument of memory and sacrifice. Its cracked stones still speak, and every 15th of September the people of Vrontamas and the neighbouring villages, together with schools, associations and pilgrims, climb up in reverence – to honour, to remember, and to learn.

That sacrifice, which shaped the history and identity of Vrontamas, echoes through the surrounding villages and across our land. It is a legacy that unites us, a responsibility that falls on us all – an undying flame of remembrance that continues to light our faith and our freedom.

And there, in the silence of the mountain, the memorial service is held each year: a moment of collective remembrance that history is not a forgotten book, but a living inheritance. And as long as we remember it, and hand it on to our children, the Paliomonastiro will stand tall – a beacon of memory, of freedom, and of the indomitable Greek spirit.

Note: The term "Μικρό Μεσολόγγι" (Little Missolonghi) is a powerful cultural reference. The Massacre of Missolonghi was a major event in the Greek War of Independence, and by comparing Vrontamas to it, the author signifies its immense symbolic importance.

Drone Journey Over the Old Monastery of Vrontamas