Mount Athos

ATH´OS: The easternmost of the three tongues of land projecting into the Ægean Sea from the Chalcidian peninsula. It is about 35 miles long and culminates at the southern extremity in Mt. Athos proper, 6,780 feet high. Grand forests, murmuring brooks, clear air, and charming combination of rocks and sea, make it one of the most beautiful spots of Europe. By the Orthodox Greeks it is always called ” the Holy Mount.”

According to the legend, the Holy Virgin Christianized Mt. Athos and Constantine the Great founded the first monasteries there. But the Athos monasticism does not appear in church history before the middle of the ninth century. At that time the monks formed a laura of the old fashion, with its center at Karyas, presided over by a prōtos appointed by the emperor in Constantinople. With the founding of the Laura of St. Athanasius, the first great monastery there, in 963, Athos rises in historical importance. The founder of this monastery (which still bears his name) and of the whole monastic life on Mt. Athos, belonged to a noble family in Trebizond. Through Michael Maleīnos, the famous hegumenos of Mt. Kyminos in Asia Minor, where he himself lived at first as monk, he became acquainted with the future emperor, Nicephoras II (Phocas). The two men became good friends and the laura was founded at the instance of the emperor. Ever after Athos enjoyed imperial favor and monasteries were founded in rapid succession. To the tenth century belongs the founding of Iveron, Vatopedi, and Philotheu; to the eleventh, Xeropotam, Esfigmenu, Dochiariu, Agiu Paulu, Karakallu, and Xenophontos; to the twelfth, the two important Slav monasteries, Russiko and Chilandari; to the thirteenth, Zografu; and to the fourteenth, Pantokratoros, Simopetra, Dionysiu, and Gregoriu. The most recent is Stauronikita, founded in 1542. There were others which long ago disappeared, such as a Latin monastery of the Amalfines.

Until the fifteenth century all the monks lived together, according to rules laid down by Athanasius in his three writings, the Kanonikon, the Diathēkē, and the so-called Diatypōsis (of. Meyer, Haupturkunden). Any man of unblemished character could be received; but women, children, beardless youths, and people of royal descent were forbidden entrance. After a three years’ probation admission into the holy company of the brethren took place and the tonsure was received. At the head of the monastery stood the hēgoumenos, assisted by a council of ” the chosen,” i.e., the higher monastic officers and the priest-monks. Two ephors, generally a noble layman outside of Athos and a monk not belonging to the monastery, formed a non-resident directorate. Approved monks could live by themselves, and received a special dwelling (Gk. kellion), whence they were called kelliotes, or after their mode of living, ascetics or hesychasts, but were dependent on the monastery. The relation of the monasteries to each other and the entire constitution of the holy mount was regulated at that period by the typica of 975, 1045, and 1394 (printed in Meyer). The prōtos stood at the head, by his side the synaxis, consisting of the representatives of the monasteries, which as before met at Karyas. At first the life during this period was austere, but in the eleventh century it relaxed, and at one time nomads with wives and children were sheltered at Athos (Meyer, 163 sqq.). The Latin rule at Constantinople was an especially sad time for the monasteries. In the Hesychastic controversy (1341-51) western science was rejected especially through the influence of the Athos monks and quietistic mysticism was received into the teachings of the Greek Church (see Hesychasts).