Athos

The journey of the soul out of time

“There is a country in the world, Mount Athos, a value of great admiration. It has wonderful climate and all kinds of vegetation. It is bathed in sun-clear rays and is adorned with many trees, groves and meadows. It is rich in human works. Here all the traits of virtue have been gathered, either in nature, or in the lonely life of the people who have lived there”...

Nikiphoros Grigoras, Byzantine historian

Once, back in the years of myth, a huge giant whose name was Athos, threw over a god a huge rock, which people then inhabited ... That's how a fairy tale would start for the Athos peninsula, which is not necessary to be addressed to young children. The materials of the dream are also known here, as in all Aegean: stone and oak, olives and sweet winter, tragic air and the journey in time starts ...

The restless coastline of the peninsula of Athos will host the eyes of the traveler, the pilgrim who cannot cross the sacred gates while respecting the abbey. Pelasgoi and Trojans who arrived here as refuges, were the first inhabitants, as well as the Chalcidis who settled the peninsula of Chalcidiki in the 7th century B.C. Its inhabitants quickly developed a remarkable culture, but the Peloponnesian war caused many cities to be destroyed. But in the face of danger, unity is the only answer: the “Chalcidian League (Chalcidians in Thrace)”, has begun to become a considerable force, so it has come to the target of Philip of Macedonia, the king who succeeded in bringing the region to his kingdom). In the ruins of the city of Sani of Athos, a new city was built and the whole area was followed by the Macedonian fate. Shortly before the apostle Paul reaches Egnatia Odos (50 AD) in Thessaloniki, Athos is a Roman colony or at least part of it. According to a Russian tradition, the Virgin Mary, after the Resurrection, preached Christianity from the bay of the monastery of Ivira, to the idolatry until then, Athos. With the destruction of Goths and Huns, it moved to the 9th century, so began the systematic arrangement of Orthodox monasticism. Mount Athos, as was established with the golden seal, the name of Athos by the emperor Alexios Komninos (11th c.), was strengthened by Byzantine imperial subsidies. By the 10th century, most of the peninsula was owned by the monasteries, which also absorbed fast, properties of Byzantine officials. But all the monasteries of Mount Athos faced the scourge of pirates and fires, as three centuries later they would face the Catalan floods, who would plunder for two whole years uninterrupted the seaside places. The monks of Athos were exterminated by Franks and Latins, while during the Ottoman occupation they enjoyed some autonomy from the Sultans. It is characteristic that they were addressed to the Turkish authorities in Greek.

In 1794 the Athonian Academy was founded in the framework of a new period of prosperity of the Mount, with enlightened masters. Everything was lost, however, along with the Revolution, and only after 1826 the monks began to return to the dilapidated monasteries, almost on time to protect them from the Pan-Slavism movement, of the 4,000 Russian monks who went waves in accordance with the Russian government's political instructions. But, in 1821, they took the part of the Revolution openly, following the Emmanuel Pappas hero, thus invading 3000 Turks for the first time and outlaw the fighter at the astronomical price of 2,500,000 piasters. With the care of the monks, 6,000 women and children were sent to the islands, while 10,000 were martyrs or were sold by the Turks. In 1878, new attempts for revolution in Chaalcidiki were abolished, and the monasteries must now face the Bulgarian raids. Finally, during the Balkan wars (1912), Greek rebels raised the villages and declared union with Greece.

On 11/5/1912 Greek warships headed by Averof, raised the Greek flag in the port of Dafni. Fourteen years later, the Greek state recognized the regime of Mount Athos, although its population had been decimated.

In 1922 hundreds of refugees resorted to Mount Athos to work in the monastic estates, isolated, persecuted by their compatriots as contaminators ... Most of the houses in Ouranoupoli were built to house the refugees of Ionia. Shortly afterwards, however, the economic problems imposed the peculiar regime, according to which each monk lived as ascetic on his own while ensuring his livelihood.

The only monastic state in the world was the cradle of typography and hagiography, with worthy representatives Theophanis and Panselinos, whose frowning, strict saints lit up in their Catholics.
The first settler is considered Petros Athonitis (7th century AD) and farmer monks from the 9th century. The period between the 10th and the 12th centuries is the golden period of prosperity of Mount Athos, with its glow covering all the Balkans until far away Russia. Its privileges were ratified by the Conqueror.

The monasteries insist on following until today the Byzantine clock and the Julian calendar, that is, the sunset is the end of the day.

Mount is a self-governing part of the Greek state. It is in the HMFM (Hellenic Ministry of Foreign Affairs) and is governed by the law system. Monasteries, sketes and cells, huts and chairs, hermitages, (the redoubtable Karoulia), all constitute the holy community of Mount, the Orchard of the Virgin. Twenty representatives from the same monasteries have an annual service, having the judicial, legislative and executive powers. For everyday affairs, there is the foreman and the first-foreman and private police. In Karyes, capital of Athos, is the head of the political governor who is dependent on the Foreign Ministry and has an advisory opinion at the meetings of the Holy Community.