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Soumela Monastery was the center of Spirituality of the Greek Pontian people.Situated in present day Turkey it was for centuries a pilgimage of the Greek Pontians since the monastery was dedicated to the miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary said to have been painted by Saint Luke.Besides the icon,the inside walls of the the monastery were completely covered with Byzantine frescoes,and its library was made up of thousands of books,many of them hand written and of priceless artistic and cultural value.During 1922 the monastery was attacked by Kemalist troops and it was completely destroyed and burned down along with its library.However,the monks who lived in the monastery during that time,managed to bury the icon in a secret place.During the same year,the Pontian people fled their homes and villages and found refuge in either Greece,Georgia, or Russia.In 1930,one of the monks of the monastery returned back to Turkey and found the icon and brought it to Greece,after the governments of Greece and Turkey agreed for him to take this expedition.The icon was kept at the byzantine Museum in Athens, until 1952,when a new monastery was build in Madeconia at Veria,close to Kastania village.Since then the new Monastery of Soumela has become a center of religious pilgimage not only of the Pontian Greeks but also for all Greeks.
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