Osios Lentios

High on a cliff of Mount Klokos, in a natural cavity, stand the remains of a monastery that predates the one now visible in the valley below. Founded around 1450 by the despots of Mystras, Thomas and Demetrios, it honoured the monk Leontios, who had used the spot as his hermitage since 1420. The original home of the Taxiarches monastery, it was destroyed by the Turks in 1500, rebuilt in the late sixteenth century, and destroyed once more in 1620. At that point the community relocated to its present, lower site, leaving this older foundation to decay. What survives today includes a tower at the entrance and a short curtain wall on the western side, traces of its defensive character. The church of the Archangel Michael still holds sixteenth-century frescoes, though the overall condition is not good.