The Latin and Greek Churches in former Byzantine Lands 167
abbey of canons regular of the Temple, originally founded in the Holy Land
in the early 12th century, was granted the Greek monasteries of St Nicholas of
Varvar in Constantinople, the Holy Trinity in Athens, St Nicholas of Thebes,
St Nicholas of Euboea and St Mary of Kleisura in Thermopylae, to which Latin
priors were appointed. Latin secular canons replaced the Greek monks at the
monastery of St Demetrius in Thessalonica, which Boniface of Montferrat
donated to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They quarrelled there with the
canons regular of the Holy Sepulchre, another congregation founded in the
Holy Land in 1114 and who received the basilica of St Demetrius in that city.
In the Peloponnese the Augustinian canons regular received the abbey of the
Holy Saviour located in the region of Messenia from Simon de Lagny and may
have held this possession right up to the Ottoman conquest of 1460. Less suc-
cessful apparently was the congregation of canons regular of St Rufus, installed
in Patras under Pope Innocent iii in around 1210. They were ejected by the
secular canons of the church of Patras and it is uncertain if they were rein-
stalled in 1212 following a papal request to Prince Geoffrey de Villehardouin, for
nothing more is heard of them.50
Latin communities of monks also moved to Greece. In 1207 Tomasso
Morosini granted St George of Verlocopo to the abbey of Nonantola and Pope
Innocent iii asked the abbey to send out monks to take it over. Also in 1207
Duke Otto de la Roche of Athens brought Cistercian monks from Bellevaux
to the Greek monastery of Daphni or Laurus in central Greece, although the
reasons its previous Greek monks had abandoned it are not known. This
Cistercian house, which the monks took possession of in 1211, lasted down to
the 15th century, outliving most if not all Cistercian foundations in Greece, and
several dukes of Athens were buried there. Meanwhile, in the Peloponnese
Archbishop Antelm granted the Greek monastery of St Mary of “Ierocomata”
near Patras, possibly a daughter house of Our Lady of Gerokomeio, to monks
from Cluny in 1210, although the Templars claimed that he had wrongfully taken
it from them. They did not succeed in recovering it, despite a judgement in
their favour given by three papal judge-delegates some time before September
- The Greek abbey of Provata was also contested by Archbishop Antelm and
the Templars, although in this case the papal judge-delegate, Archdeacon John
of Andravida (Andreville) decided in Antelm’s favour.51
50 Tsougarakis, Latin Religious Orders, pp. 264–268; Richard, “Latin Church in
Constantinople,” pp. 51–53; Claverie, Honorius iii, pp. 140–41 and 155–56.
51 Richard, “Latin Church in Constantinople,” pp. 51–52; Tsougarakis, Latin Religious Orders,
pp. 41–48 and 98–99; Schabel, “Antelm the Nasty,” pp. 106–08.