The Holy Monastery of Ascension of the Savior is located in the village of Taxiarches in the prefecture of Drama. The history of the monastery is inextricably linked to the life and pastoral work of Saint George Karslidis the Confessor. Saint George, coming from Argyroupolis of Pontus (1930), settled in the village of Sipsa (Taxiarches) of Drama. In 1939 he began the reconstruction of the Holy Monastery, the temple of which is devoted to the Ascension of the Savior. Next to the temple he builds his small cell. In the monastery the saint develops a divinely inspired and charitable pastoral work. Many people from around the country, but also from all over Greece, arrive to receive the saint’s wish and request his help and admonishment. However, since 1959, the year of his holy decease, until 1970 the Monastery had been abandoned. In 1970, at the instigation of His Eminence Metropolitan of Drama, Dionysios, the monastery was manned and a sorority settled there. Since then, the physical and spiritual struggle of the sorority, with the help of the army and the blessings of Saint George, contributed to the reconstruction of the Holy Monastery and a new Holy Temple dedicated to the Candlemas Day (Feast of the Presentation of our Lord Jesus, Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary) was founded.
After the disposal of Saint George's relics in 2006 and its holy pilgrimage in 2008, a crowd of devout pilgrims arrive to worship the Holy Relics of the Saint, asking for his help.
Today in the monastery dwell 30 nuns, under the abbess of the Holy Monastery, the elder Porfyria.
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