Hozoviotissa monastery, Orthodox monastery in Amorgos, Greece

Hozoviotissa monastery is a white, narrow building set against the cliff on Amorgos's eastern coast, about 300 metres above the sea. It is roughly 40 metres long and at most 5 metres wide, with eight levels linked by stairways built or cut into the rock. Its facade has small square windows, a rounded niche and a stepped, crenellated top; a bell tower with arched openings stands above the lower roofline.

The monastery's core dates to the first half of the 9th century, when an icon of the Virgin, said to have been thrown into the sea in Palestine during Iconoclasm, washed ashore near the bay of Agia Anna. Emperor Alexios I Komnenos granted it stavropegic rights by a golden bull in 1088, the date treated as its official foundation. Pirates forced the monks to abandon it for eight years from 1520, and it later headed estates as far as Crete and Santorini.

The monastery is named after an icon of the Virgin said to have arrived by sea from Palestine during Iconoclasm; it is Amorgos's patron saint, celebrated on 20 and 21 November. The catholicon on the eighth floor holds the Panagia Chozoviotissa icon in a wooden frame carved by Ioannis Magiassis in 1866, along with icons of Christ, the Archangel Michael, Saint George and the Last Judgment.

The approach starts from Chóra by road to a stone entrance with an iron gate, decorated with a mosaic of the Virgin and Child. From there a paved stairway of 370 steps climbs to a small courtyard; a stone stair, once a retractable wooden one, leads to the door with a 16th-century carved marble frame. The entrance itself sits about 10 metres above the ground.

The entrance door sits about 10 metres above the ground and was once reached by a hanging ladder; the stone stair that replaced it was formerly wooden and could be pulled up for safety. A carved marble relief of the 16th century frames the doorway, which is topped by a relieving arch.