Panagia Soumela, also known as the Monastery of Virgin Mary Soumela, is an important Greek Orthodox monastery located in the Pontic Mountains in the region of Macedonia, northern Greece.
The monastery was founded in the 4th century AD by two monks who discovered a miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary in a cave. Over the centuries, it became a center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity and a symbol of Greek identity for the Pontic Greeks, who were forcibly relocated from the area during the 20th century.