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Damaged in the 1999 earthquake, Dhafni Monastery was closed at the time of research for restoration work and is due to reopen in 2003. One of the great buildings of Byzantine architecture, the monastery's classic Greek-cross-octagon design is a refinement of a plan first used at Osios Loukas, on the road to Delphi, and its mosaics are considered among the great masterpieces of the Middle Ages. The monastic church replaced a fortified fifth-century basilica, which in turn had been adapted from the ruins of a sanctuary of Apollo - the name is derived from the daphnai (laurels) sacred to the god. Both the church and the fortifications which enclose it incorporate blocks from the ancient sanctuary; a porch featuring Classical columns was present up until two centuries ago, when it was hauled off among Lord Elgin's swag. The Byzantines only occupied the building for little over a century. When the monastery was established, in 1070, the Greek Church was undergoing an intellectual revival, but the state was in terminal collapse. The following year the Normans took Bari, the last Byzantine possession in southern Italy, and the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine army in Armenia - a prelude to the loss of Asia Minor and, before long, Greece itself. The fortifications and remains of a Gothic cloister show evidence of later building under the Cistercians, who replaced Dhafni's Orthodox monks after the Frankish conquest of Athens in 1204. The monastery today is unoccupied; the Cistercians were banished by the Turks, and Orthodox monks, allowed to return in the sixteenth century, were duly expelled for harbouring rebels during the War of Independence. Inside the church, the mosaic cycle is remarkable for its completeness: there are scenes from the life of Christ and the Virgin, saints (a predominance of Eastern figures from Syria and elsewhere in the Levant), archangels and prophets. The greatest triumph is the Pandokrator (Christ in Majesty) on the dome: lit by the sixteen windows of the drum, and set against a background of gold, this stern image directs a tremendous and piercing gaze, his finger poised on the Book of Judgement. A perfect encapsulation of the strict orthodoxy of Byzantine belief, the scene is rendered poignant by the troubled circumstances in which it was created.
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