Latomou Monastery (The church of Hosios David)
“The church of Hosios (or the Blessed) David, was once the catholicon or central church of the monastery of Christ the Saviour of the Latomos or Latomoi (quarryman/men). It stands in Thessaloniki’s Upper Town, just off Timotheou street, at the top end of Aghias Sophias street and to the south-west of Vlatadon monastery. It was officially dedicated to the memory of the Blessed David of Thessaloniki in 1921, when it was reconsecrated as a Christian church, having been a mosque under the name of Suluca for centuries.
The first scholars to investigate to investigate Thessaloniki’s Christian monuments (notably Tafel, Chatzi Ioannou, Taftrali, Adamantiou and Diehl) fail to mention this one. Outwardly insignificant and unassuming in its surviving form, its splendid interior decoration covered over with the Turkish plaster, it is not surprising that it did not attract their attention. Indeed, in his book on the topography of Thessaloniki, published in 1913, Trafali included Latomou monastery amongst Thessaloniki’s no longer surviving monasteries…”.
(from the introduction of the edition)
