The Byzantine Holy Monastery of Kato Panagia was founded in 1250 by Michael II Komninos Doukas, Despot of Epirus and his wife, Saint Theodora the Queen of Epirus. Since then, it has been operating unceasingly as a communal monastery (now a nunnery) and externally it maintains almost entirely its original traditional architecture and splendor, despite the destructions during the Ottoman domination.

The Katholikon (major temple) is honored at the Birth of the Virgin Mary and was named Kato Panagia as opposed to the great temple of Byzantine Arta, Virgin Mary of Parigoritissa. The main temple is divided with two colonnades into three aisles, which are covered by cylindrical domes and shields. Inside the monastery's enclosure there is the chapel of Saint Anna - a small plate-covered basilica (architecture style) without frescoes- built in 1880, while outside the precinct was built, a few years ago, a beautiful temple in honor of the martyr Saint Zacharios of Arta, whose cost was covered by the monastery.

Until 1953, it was a male monastery, but it had been in decline, as only two monks lived there and the one of them was decrepit. Then, with archbishop’s Serafim initiative who was archbishop of Arta and later of Athens and of all Hellas, the monastery was converted to nunnery with first abbot an old woman named Agni.

The garden of the courtyard makes the place a real “orchard of the Virgin” and rewards the visitors, bearing them the scent and delight.

Metochi (glebe land) of the Holy Monastery of Kato Panagia, is Panagia Odigitria which is located in the city of Arta.

Today, thanks to the constant care of the nuns, the monastery is kept alive and against time, it keeps to a great extent its old picturesqueness. Fifteen nuns dwell in the monastery with abbot the nun Charitini.

The monastery celebrates on 8 September. It is located by the river Arachthos, about 20 minutes west of the city of Arta. The view from the monastery is stunning, as Arachthos flows in front of it, and right after the river is located the plain of Arta.