page_title: Hosios Loukas
section_title: Architecture
hierarchical_section_title: Hosios Loukas / Architecture
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Vue du monastère de Hosios Loukas, en Béotie.
context_page_description: Hosios Loukas is a historic walled monastery situated near the town of Distomo, in Boeotia, Greece. It is one of the most important monuments of Middle Byzantine architecture and art, and has been listed on UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, along with the monasteries of Nea Moni and Daphnion.
context_section_description: The Hosios Loukas, the oldest in the complex, is the only church known with certainty to have been built in the tenth century in its site in mainland Greece. This centralized parallelogram-shaped building is the oldest example of the cross-in-square type in the country; its plan closely follows that of Lips Monastery in Constantinople. The walls are opus mixtum (part brick, part stone, part marble) and display curious pseudo-kufic patterns.
  The Hosios Loukas adjoins a larger cathedral church, or Katholikon, tentatively dated to 1011-12. The Katholikon is the earliest extant domed-octagon church, with eight piers arranged around the perimeter of the naos (nave). The hemispherical dome (without a drum) rests upon four squinches which make a transition from the octagonal base under the dome to the square defined by the walls below. The main cube of the church is surrounded by galleries and chapels on all four sides.
caption: Exterior view
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