Monastic community of Mount Athos
The monastic community of Mount Athos is an Eastern Orthodox community of monks living on the Mount Athos peninsula in Northern Greece.
The monastic community enjoys autonomous self-government within the borders of the Athos peninsula. The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs manages relations between Athos and the Government of Greece. The community includes 20 monasteries and dependent settlements. The monasteries house around 2,000 Eastern Orthodox monks from Greece and many other countries, including Eastern Orthodox countries such as Serbia, Romania, Moldova, Georgia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Ukraine and Russia, who vow to live an ascetic life at Athos, isolated from the rest of the world. The Athonite monasteries feature a rich collection of well-preserved artifacts, rare books, ancient documents, and artworks of immense historical value, and Mount Athos has been listed as a World Heritage Site since 1988.
Women are banned from Mount Athos by religious tradition.
Administration and organization
According to the constitution of Greece, the territory of the monastic community which is "he Athos peninsula extending beyond Megali Vigla and constituting the region of Aghion Oros" is, "following ancient privilege", "a self-governed part of the Greek State, whose sovereignty thereon shall remain intact". The constitution also states that "ll persons leading a monastic life thereon acquire Greek citizenship without further formalities, upon admission as novices or monks." The constitution states "Heterodoxy|eterodox or schismatic persons" are forbidden to stay on the territory. The community consists of 20 main monasteries which constitute the Holy Community. Karyes is home to a civil administrator as the representative of the Greek state. The governor is an executive appointee.Although Mount Athos is legally part of the European Union like the rest of Greece, the monastic community institutions have a special jurisdiction, which was reaffirmed during the admission of Greece to the European Community. This empowers the monastic community's authorities to restrict the free movement of people and goods in its territory; in particular, only men are allowed to enter.
The border of the monastic community and the municipality of Aristotelis, is separated by a fence about in length. Karyes is the administrative center and the seat of the synod and the civil administration.
Administration
Civil authorities are represented by the Civil Administrator of Mount Athos, appointed by presidential decree on recommendation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He supervises the function of the institutions and the public order.The monasteries of the monastic community are stauropegic, i.e. they are exempt from the authority of the local bishop and only report to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. The monastic community is under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I.
Each of the 20 monasteries is administered by an archimandrite elected by the monks for life. The Convention of the Brotherhood is the legislative body. Each of the other establishments is a dependency of one of the 20 monasteries and is assigned to the monks by a document called .
Monks
All persons leading a monastic life in the monastic community receive Greek citizenship upon admission as novices or monks. Laymen can visit the monastic community, but they need a special permit known as a .In 17 of the monasteries, the monks are predominantly ethnic Greek. The Helandariou Monastery is Serbian and Montenegrin, the Zografou Monastery is Bulgarian, and the Agiou Panteleimonos monastery is Russian.
Most of the sketes are also predominantly ethnic Greek; however, two sketes are Romanian. They are the coenobitic "Skētē Timiou Prodromou" and the idiorrhythmic "Skētē Agiou Dēmētriou tou Lakkou", also called "Lakkoskētē". A third skete is Bulgarian, the coenobitic "Skētē Bogoroditsa".
The Greek language is commonly used in all the Greek monasteries, but in some monasteries there are other languages in use: in Agiou Panteleimonos, Russian ; in Hilandar Monastery, Serbian ; in Zographou Monastery and Skiti Bogoroditsa, Bulgarian ; and in Timiou Prodromou and Lakkoskiti, Romanian.
History
Byzantine era: the first monasteries
The chroniclers Theophanes the Confessor and Georgios Kedrenos wrote that the 726 eruption of the Thera volcano was visible from Mount Athos, indicating that it was inhabited at the time. The historian Genesios recorded that monks from Athos participated in the seventh Ecumenical Council of Nicaea of 787. Following the Battle of Thasos in 829, Athos was deserted for some time due to the destructive raids of the Cretan Saracens. Around 860, the monk Euthymios the Younger came to Athos from Bithynia.File:Mucha, Alfons - Der Heilige Berg Athos - 1926.jpg|thumb|Holy Mount Athos: The Holy Mount Athos: Sheltering the Oldest Orthodox Literary Treasures, by Alphonse Mucha, The Slav Epic
In 958, the monk Athanasios the Athonite arrived on Mount Athos. In 962, he built the large central church of the Protaton in Karyes. In the next year, with the support of his friend Emperor Nicephorus Phocas, the monastery of Great Lavra was founded, still the largest and most prominent of the twenty monasteries existing today. During the following centuries, it enjoyed the protection of the Byzantine emperors, and its wealth and possessions grew considerably. Alexios I Komnenos, emperor from 1081 to 1118, gave Mount Athos complete autonomy from the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Bishop of Ierissos, and also exempted the monasteries from taxation. Furthermore, until 1312, the Protos of Karyes was directly appointed by the Byzantine Emperor.
The first charter of Mount Athos, signed in 972 by Emperor John Tzimiskes, Athanasius the Athonite, and 46, is currently kept at the Protaton in Karyes. It is also known as the , since it was written on goatskin parchment. The second charter or of Mount Athos was written in September 1045 and signed by 180. Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos ratified the typikon with an imperial chrysobull in June 1046. This charter was also the first official document that referred to Mount Athos as the "Holy Mountain".
From 985 to 1287, there was a Benedictine monastery on Mount Athos known as after the people of Amalfi who founded it. The monastery was founded with the support of John the Iberian, a Georgian and the founder of the Iviron Monastery, and is thought to have influenced Latin Christian monasticism and piety.
The Fourth Crusade in the 13th century brought new Roman Catholic overlords, which forced the monks to complain and ask for the intervention of Pope Innocent III until the restoration of the Byzantine Empire. The peninsula was raided by Catalan mercenaries in the 14th century in the so-called Catalan vengeance, due to which the entry of people of Catalan origin was prohibited until 2005. The 14th century also saw the theological conflict over the hesychasm practised on Mount Athos and defended by Gregory Palamas. In late 1371 or early 1372, the Byzantines defeated an Ottoman attack on Athos.
Serbian era and influences
n lords of the Nemanjić dynasty offered financial support to the monasteries of Mount Athos, while some of them also made pilgrimages and became monks there. Stefan Nemanja helped build the Hilandar monastery on Mount Athos together with his son Archbishop Saint Sava in 1198.From 1342 until 1372, Mount Athos was under Serbian administration. Serbian Emperor Stefan Dušan helped Mount Athos with many large donations to all monasteries. In the charter of emperor Stefan Dušan to the Monastery of Hilandar the Emperor gave to the monastery Hilandar direct rule over many villages and churches, including the church of Svetog Nikole u Dobrušti in Prizren, the church of Svetih Arhanđela in Štip, the Church of Svetog Nikole in Vranje and surrounding lands and possessions. He also gave large possessions and donations to the Karyes Hermitage of St. Sabas and the Holy Archangels in Jerusalem. Empress Helena, wife of the Emperor Stefan Dušan, was among the very few women allowed to visit and stay in Mount Athos, to protect her from the plague.
She avoided breaking the ban against a woman setting foot on the mountain by not touching the ground for her entire visit, being constantly carried in a litter.
Thanks to the donations by Dušan, the Serbian monastery of Hilandar was enlarged to more than 10,000 hectares, thus having the largest possessions on Mount Athos among other monasteries, and occupying 1/3 of the area. Serbian nobleman Antonije Bagaš, together with Nikola Radonja, bought and restored the ruined Agiou Pavlou monastery between 1355 and 1365, becoming its abbot.
The time of the Serbian Empire was a prosperous period for Hilandar and other monasteries in Mount Athos, and many of them were restored, rebuilt, and significantly enlarged.
Serbian princess Mara Branković was the second Serbian woman that was granted permission to visit the area. At the end of the 15th century, five monasteries on Mount Athos had Serbian monks and were under the Serbian Prior: Docheiariou, Grigoriou, Ayiou Pavlou, Ayiou Dionysiou and Hilandar
Ottoman era
The Byzantine Empire ceased to exist in the 15th century, and the Ottoman Empire took its place.From the account of the Russian pilgrim Isaiah, by the end of the 15th century, monasteries in Mount Athos represented monastic communities from large and diverse parts of the Balkans. Other monasteries listed by him bear no such designations; in particular, Docheiariou, Grigoriou, Ayiou Pavlou, Ayiou Dionysiou, and Chilandariou were Serbian; Karakalou and Philotheou were Albanian; Panteleïmon was Russian; Simonopetra was Bulgarian; Great Lavra, Vatopedi, Pantokratoros and Stavronikita were Greek; and Zographou, Kastamonitou, Xeropotamou, Koutloumousiou, Xenophontos, Iviron and Protaton did not bear any designation.
Sultan Selim I was a substantial benefactor of the Xeropotamou monastery. In 1517, he issued a fatwa and a Hatt-i Sharif that "the place, where the Holy Gospel is preached, whenever it is burned or even damaged, shall be erected again". He also endowed privileges to the Abbey and financed the construction of the dining area and the underground of the Abbey, as well as the renovation of the wall paintings in the central church that were completed between the years 1533 and 1541.
This new way of monastic organization was an emergency measure taken by the monastic communities to counter their harsh economic environment. Contrary to the cenobitic system, monks in idiorrhythmic communities have private property and work for themselves, bearing sole responsibility for acquiring food and other necessities; they dine separately in their cells, only meeting with other monks at church. At the same time, the monasteries' abbots were replaced by committees, and at Karyes the Protos was replaced by a four-member committee.
In 1749, with the establishment of the Athonite Academy near Vatopedi monastery, the local monastic community took a leading role in the modern Greek Enlightenment movement of the 18th century. This institution offered high level education, especially under Eugenios Voulgaris, where ancient philosophy and modern physical science were taught.