Public Works

In recent years, the Foundation has contributed to the establishment of local medical clinics in Anilio, Milia and Anthochori. Previously, doctors from a range of specialties came from Ioannina once or twice a week, mainly to care for elderly residents. With no dedicated facilities available, consultations were often conducted in makeshift spaces inside local village coffee houses.

To address this need, the Foundation provided each community with a dedicated, heated space comprising a patient waiting area and a private examination room equipped with a desk, examination bed and bathroom.

The Foundation has also contributed to the maintenance of churches and the improvement of community spaces.

Monastery of Saint Nicholas

The Monastery of Saint Nicholas of Metsovo, which celebrates its local feast day on 17 May, is located below Metsovo, beside the Metsovitikos, a tributary of the Arachthos River. According to tradition, it was originally built around 1300. It was renovated in the 18th century and, after many years of abandonment, restored in 1960.

“Evangelos Averoff came across the ruined and desecrated monastery while walking in the area. The abandoned church stood by the old, cobbled road to Ioannina via Katara, its walls blackened by fires lit by travellers stopping to rest. In the dim light, Averoff sensed that something lay beneath the soot. Scraping at the blackened wall inside the sanctuary with a pocketknife, he suddenly saw the eye of the saint looking back at him. As he later wrote in his book At the Monastery of Ai-Nikolas, he covered it with the palm of his hand and resolved to restore the monastery in full, with funding from the Baron Michael Tossizza Foundation and from his own personal resources…”

In 1963, a formal agreement granting the Foundation use of the monastery was signed with the Metropolis of Ioannina. This was followed by the uncovering and conservation of the church’s remarkable frescoes and the full restoration of the monastery complex, including the reconstruction of the monks’ cells in their earlier form.

In 2018, following a formal request, the Monastery was returned to the Holy Metropolis of Ioannina, and the Baron Michael Tossizza Foundation ceased to be involved in its operation.