The monastery is attributed to the hermit Luke of Steiris, who died on February 7, 953. The Theotokos church is believed to date from the reign of Romanos II, 959 to 963. The Katholikon is tentatively dated 1011 to 1012 and is the earliest extant domed-octagon church, with eight piers around the naos and a hemispherical dome without a drum, supported by four squinches.
The Church of Hosios Loukas dates to the tenth century and is the oldest cross-in-square church in Greece, its plan closely following the Lips Monastery in Constantinople. The walls are opus mixtum, a mix of brick, stone and marble, with pseudo-Kufic patterns. A crypt with nine groin-vaulted bays holds frescoes believed to date from after 1048.
The Katholikon has the best-preserved mosaics of the Macedonian Renaissance, though the dome's Christ Pantocrator is missing. UNESCO inscribed the site in 1990 with Daphni and Nea Moni. The article gives no dimensions.
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