The Holy Monastery of Panagia Faneromeni of Ierapetra, also known as Panagia of Gournia, is situated on the slope of mountain offshoot of Dikti, southwest of Pahia of Ammos of the Municipality of Ierapetra above the Minoan city of Gournia and at an altitude of 540 meters. From the Monastery, sprawls, in a panoramic view, the city of Saint Nicholas and the beautiful bay of Meramvello with its picturesque coasts and its islets.

For the exact year of the construction of the Monastery, there is no ownership or other inscription. Only newer inscriptions are preserved, referring to 19th-century building works, although the current building complex, according to its architecture, is probably a 16th-century building, a period of frequent raids by the Turks on the northern coast of the Megalonisos (big island) of Crete. The exact year of the foundation of the monastery is not known. According to all the historical sources and chronological evidence, however, the monastery was probably founded in the Neo-Byzantine period (961-1204), earlier than the occupation of Crete by the Venetians in 1211.

The Catholic of the Monastery has been built in a hollow of a large rock top, in a cave, and is dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and the Zoodochos Pigi. The Sanctuary communicates with another cave. There, water is concentrated from capillary surfaces, which the believers receive as sanctification. According to the tradition, in the cavernous temple of the Catholic of the Monastery the icon of the Virgin Mary was revealed to a shepherd, and for this reason the monastery was named Virgin Mary the Faneromeni (revealed). Specifically, this shepherd had been losing daily the driver (the leader sheep) of his herd at midday. One day he decided to leave the herd and observe the ram, which went to a rock from which was flowing some water and drank. He approached and found the icon of the Virgin Mary there. But when he took it with him and put it in his bag in order to bring it to the corral, the icon disappeared. The next day the shepherd came back to the same place and found the icon. This was repeated several times, until the shepherd was assured that the icon always returned to the place it was found, so he left it in its place, where the monastery was slowly built. The icon itself, at times, especially on the 15th of August and the other celebrations of Virgin Mary the Mother of Jesus, reappears to the faithful and in a mysterious way is lost again.

But beyond the sacred pilgrimage and the religious worship of the whole Eastern Crete, it is also a historical monastery where the Cretans sheltered in the difficult years of Venetian and Turkish enslavement for protection and empowerment. The defensive character of the Monastery is clearly evidenced by the fort position and the fortress shape. In fact, there are still saved breastworks and crenellations in the spaces of the fortress complex of the monastery, as at the most monasteries built during the same period.