The monastery was founded toward the end of the sixth century on the site of an Apollo sanctuary that Goths had desecrated in 395. It declined after invasions in the 9th and 10th centuries and was restored in the 11th and 12th centuries, with a new octagonal church, refectory and cemetery chapel. No architect is named.
The church follows a Greek cross-octagon plan. Four barrel-vaulted arms project from a central square bay, and four squinches turn the square into an octagon that carries the broad dome. The exterior uses cloisonne masonry, with stone blocks framed by brick, and has red brick window frames and an orange roof.
Mosaics from the early Komnenian period, around 1100, show Christ Pantocrator in the dome with sixteen prophets at its base. Frankish crusaders sacked the monastery in 1205, and Cistercians abandoned it in 1458. UNESCO inscribed it in 1990 with Hosios Loukas and Nea Moni.
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