Holy Monastery of the Holy Forerunner Kapsa

The Holy Monastery of Timios Prodromos Kapsa Sitia is located on the southeastern tip of Crete, five kilometers west of Cape Goudoura (the ancient Erythraeum) in a panoramic position overlooking the Libyan Sea. The Monastery is built in a fortified position on a steep mountainside with an altitude of 57 meters and centered on the two-aisled cave temple of Agios Ioannis Prodromos and the Holy Trinity. On this barren, inaccessible and steep gray-red slope, there are several small and large caves, while to the west is the exit of the famous for the rare beauty of the Pervolakia gorge.

The time of the founding of the old Monastery, on which the current one was built by Saint Joseph the Elder, cannot be determined precisely, since there are no written sources that inform us about it, except for the Code of the Monastery, which was compiled in 1890 by Saint Joseph's grandson, Archimandrite Joseph Gerontakis and was ratified by the blessed Bishop of the Priesthood, Ambrose (1890-1929). As the Code states, ". .. long ago, there was on this cliff, a very ancient monastery (Venetian) perhaps or Roman, whose walls were a cliff, and in a meridian direction, built with painted walls and four wooden icons around it, one of the Theotokos, and the other three depicting the Holy Forerunner, resting on the cliff facing east... ".