Kalami Outside Of Kastro (Monastery of the Annunciation
/ Virgin Mary in Kalami)
On the northeast of Kastro, after the bay where the stream
“Doman” flows into, higher than the remains of the watermill
of Kastro, perched on the rocky slope we can find ruins that
attest to the existence of life of yesteryear. These ruins
belong to the small monastery of “Evangelismos of Kastro” or
“Panagia sto Kalami” or “Panagia Kastriotissa”.
Due to the inaccessibility of the area and the fact that it’s
been more than two centuries since the abandonment of
the Monastery, its existence is still unknown to many locals.
Another reason for that is the founding of the new monastery
of Evangelismos in Agalianou (Monastery of Evangelistria) in
1797 which overshadowed all others.
Its location being close to Kastro, the old town of the island, couldn’t help but tie the fortune of the Monastery to the one of Kastro. It was a small and poor monastery that doesn’t really stand out for its morphological features or decoration. The murals are artistically mediocre with no particularly bright colours. There is no clear layout and the crudeness and haste with which the catholicon was created is obvious.
The oldest and most reliable evidence we have to estimate the time of construction of the monastery is a dedication of 1764. According to this, half the island of Tsougrias is dedicated to the monastery of Panagia Evangelistria in Kalami. Nonetheless, this year must be much later than the construction of the Monastery, which must be somewhere between the 15th and 16th century, according to some technical features of its construction. It is actually possible that it was built in the middle of the 14th century, at the time when the residents of Skiathos moved to Kastro.