The single-aisled church with narthex of the Panayia (Virgin) Mavriotissa, the katholikon of the monastery bearing the same name, is probably an 11th century building. A chapel dedicated to John the Theologian, with wall-paintings executed in 1552 by the artist Eustathios Iakovou, was erected beside it in the 16th century.
The paintings that have survived in the katholikon are confined to the sanctuary, the west wall of the main body of the church and the narthex. Their particular style gives rise to pronounced reservations regarding their date, estimates varying from the 11th to the early 13th centuries. Moreover their style lacks features which would relate the paintings with local tradition.
The violence depicted in the wall-paintings and the distortions occurring in the drawing reach the extremes of abstraction. Some of these old wall-paintings were restored in the 13th century, while the exterior wall of the narthex was decorated with new ones.
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