Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• Her life
She was born in Athens in 1522 to an illustrious and wealthy family. Her
father was Angelo Venizelos well known for his noble descend. Her mother Syriga
Palleologina of an ancient Byzantine family herself was barren. However, one day
she entered the church of the mother of God and prayed with fervor. She fell
asleep and had a vision in which the magnificent and radiant light emitted from
the Icon of Theotokos and entered her womb upon making she knew that her
request to have a child would be fulfilled. Thus, Revoula (from Paraskevoula) was
since her birth, a child of God.
While growing up, she distinguished herself by her morality and her
intelligence. Her excellent education was a rare thing for a girl at that time.
At the age of fourteen, she was coerced into marrying Andreas Helas, a rich
nobleman who was much older than she was. It was a marriage against her will.
Battered by her husband she endured three yeas of cruelty in order not to
displease her family. She shared the fate of many women of her time.
Only seventeen, she became a widow, nevertheless, her wealth, her
beauty, her education, as well as her noble descend (from the two most
significant families of Athens) made her the most sought for bride all over
Athensand beyond. Her parents pressed her once more to contact a second
marriage but this time Revoula did not lend a favorable ear to her parents’
wishes and declared her desire to take up a monastic life.
She took up charity work and ten years after her family had passed away,
she dedicated her life to the Lord and became a nun named Philothei. (The friend
of God, in Greek)
Measures of protection
To deal with these challenges the convent took simple but effective measures:
• Empty warehouses
The Turks could have turned the world upside down, without finding
anything. The products were stored in big jars, buried in the ground. Even today,
inhabitants of the suburb, named after her, say that they find such jars when
digging, even as far as 2 hectares from the Monastery’s outer walls.