Abbey of Santa Maria di Pulsano

About 10 km from Monte Sant’Angelo, surrounded by unspoilt nature, stands the Abbey of Santa Maria of Pulsano.

Place of monks, hermits and coenobites, Eastern and Latin, is a beautiful example of Romanesque. Here, where time stops, in the silence of the valleys, holy men devoted themselves to the ascetic and contemplative life. Around the Abbey, in fact, embedded in the rock, are scattered 24 hermitages, connected by a network of narrow streets and steep trails.  Built in the sixth century by the monk- Pope St. Gregory the Great, the abbey was renamed “Santa Maria di Pulsano” by St. John of Matera, who in his way of faith here he found the place to build the house of the Mother of God. From the testimony of the life of St. John Abbot was born the Order of the Hermits “Pulsanesi” also known as “Scalzi” that means “Barefoot”. The Abbey in its current form, severely damaged by an earthquake in the year 1646, was commissioned by Blessed Joel.

Today the monastery is guarded by the new monastic community of Pulsano. The church has a single nave ending in a natural cave, which houses the icon of Our Lady Odigidria of Pulsano. Inside is one of the few preserved Byzantine altars still present in Italy, consecrated by Pope Alexander III.

The Abbey, also has a library of 17.000 volumes and a school of Byzantine iconography.

In 2010, the Abbey with its hermitages was awarded the first place in the census of the Italian Environment Fund (F.A.I.) “Places of the heart to be safeguarded”. Byzantine and Catholic find in Apulia,especially in this place, where the Eastern liturgy and Latin too, return to live, its natural cradle. Anyone who wants to live the peace of a place out of time, it will find here.