Three stories claim the founding of a monastery nestled in the rocks of Agrafa in the 15th or 16th century A.D. The first says that the monastery took its name because an icon of the Virgin Mary was found by shepherds deep in a cave in the 12th century. The second says that the icon of the Virgin Mary was transferred to the location where the monastery now stands from the village of Stana in Amfilochia to protect it during the Iconoclasm, while the third makes mention of many herders who had their sheepfolds (stani)in the area. The small wood-carved iconostasis with its icons, and the entire hagiography decoration of the church, indicates the brush strokes of great hagiographers of the Byzantine School of Agrafa.