Forty Saints Monastery, Byzantine monastery ruins on hilltop near Sarandë, Albania

Klasztor 40 świętych meczenników is a Byzantine monastery ruin situated on a hilltop near Sarandë, with fragments of its original basilica walls still visible. The site commands views toward the Ionian Sea from its elevated position.

Founded probably under Justinian (527–565), the monastery kept forty underground chapels, each dedicated to one of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste. It stayed a major pilgrimage site until the 14th–15th centuries, when Ottoman conquest brought repeated destruction; it drew pilgrims again in the 18th–19th centuries. The basilica was abandoned in the early 20th century, shattered in 1944, and demolished in the 1950s.

The Greek name Agioi Saranta, meaning Forty Saints, passed from the monastery to the nearby city of Onchesmos, which became modern Sarandë. The monastery was a major pilgrimage site for at least a millennium, and the local Greek Orthodox population still leaves flowers at the ruins.

The monastery sits several kilometers from Sarandë's center and requires an uphill walk or transportation by car or taxi to reach. Visiting during daylight hours makes navigation easier and helps you avoid the strongest midday heat.

The underground rooms held forty small chapels, each dedicated to one of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, martyred in the Early Christian period. The complex also had holy water springs and crypts, and a crypt lies in the western part of the basilica. Dedicatory Greek inscriptions of broken tile and potsherds, some from the 5th and 6th centuries, were found along the walls.