Athos, Mount

ATHOS, MOUNT. - It is the easternmost of the three peninsulas that extend southward from the Chalcidian peninsula. It is almost 50 km long and on average 5 to 7 wide. Running through its entire length is a mountainous ridge, which ends in a cone 1935 meters high, which is A. properly so called, whose name has been extended to the whole peninsula. In documents of the 9th century the name of Holy Mountain (τὸ ἄγιον ὅρος) appears for the first time, from which came the name of Hagiorites (also Athonites, Athoites) for the monks who inhabit it. These began to populate the mountain — which attracted, by its tranquil and remote position, those desirous of quiet — when the Muslim conquest drove them out of Palestine, Syria and Egypt, and when the iconoclast persecution raged in the Byzantine empire. The most ancient monasteries established themselves in the flat part of A., but later they spread also into the interior of the holy mountain. Around the year 824 St. Euthymius visited the place and remained there in solitude for three years.

I. HISTORY

The history of Athonite monasticism can be divided into four periods.

1st period. - This first period, which runs from the origins up to St. Athanasius the Lavriote, is characterized by an intense eremitic life, as appears from the imperial chrysobulls of Basil I the Macedonian (885) and of Leo VI the Wise (911), confirmed by Romanus I Lecapenus (934), by which the emperors forbid causing annoyance and in any case attempting anything against the complete independence of the hermits of the holy mountain, whose interests were protected for the monasteries outside by a central authority called the Seat of the Elders, and for the monasteries situated within the mountain and inhabited by solitaries (hesychasts) by a supreme head called the Protos.

2nd period. - It begins with the arrival on Athos of St. Athanasius the Lavriote (in the world Abraham), who in 936 founded a lavra (or monastery) still in existence, with a rule (typicon) of cenobitic life, that is, in common, without individual possessions, and under the obedience of a single head or abbot (hegumen). This novelty of regime raised the protests of the solitaries, which reached as far as the emperor John Tzimiskes, but the visitor Euthymius sent by him to the mountain confirmed the reform of Athanasius. From then on the Athonite cenobia multiplied and a regulation was compiled that fixed the relations of the monasteries among themselves, with the supreme head or Protos residing in the center of the peninsula, at Karyes.

The multiplication of the monks led, under Constantine IX Monomachus, to the convening of a general assembly of 180 solitaries which fixed a new typicon (1046) in which rules of common interest were established, such as the delimitation of possessions and rights, the prohibition of buying or selling land still without an owner, and the norms for passing from one monastery to another.

It is from the time of St. Athanasius (between 980 and 1000) that the Benedictine monastery of the Amalfitans, τῶν Ἀμαλφινῶν (Μολφινῶν), was founded, whose first superior was Leo, brother of Pandulf II prince of Capua. The monastery, from which there also came an abbot of Montecassino, John of Benevento, was destroyed following the harassment of the soldiers of the crusade. Some remains of it still exist at the eastern extremity of the peninsula (O. Rousseau, L'ancien monastère bénédictin du Mont-A., Maredsous 1929).

Besides monks of Greek language, those of Georgia also took up residence on Athos, whose monastery, called that of the Iberians (τῶν Ἰβήρων), was founded around 980; the occupation made in 1230 by the Bulgarians and in the middle of the 14th century by the Serbs led to the foundation of the Bulgarian monastery of Zografu and of the Serbian one of Chilandar. The 11th-16th centuries were times of agitation and blood for Athos because of the Saracen incursions and of the warriors of the IV crusade, against whom the monks appealed to Innocent III. They did not, however, adhere to the union fixed at the Council of Lyon (1274), because it was imposed by force by the emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus.

In the 14th century, after the victory of Murad I at Kosovo (1339), Athos fell under the dominion of the Turks, who nevertheless left the monks in a privileged situation. In this same century the monks were shaken by the controversy of Hesychasm (v.) upheld by Gregory Palamas (v.) and combated by the Calabrian monk Barlaam (v.).

At the time of the Council of Florence (1438-39) the monks delegated from the great Lavra and from the monastery of Vatopedi subscribed to the decree of union, but in fact the matter remained a dead letter.

Around the same period (16th century) the grave abuses of idiorrhythmia manifested themselves among the Hagiorite monks. As a whole this is a manner of life that allows individual monks to dispose of the goods acquired by their own work or in another manner and that withdraws from most of the duties of common life, substituting individualism and particularism for pure cenobitism, with the consequence of a wide development of commerce among the monks themselves and with the outside. In vain the patriarchs Sylvester of Alexandria and Jeremiah II of Constantinople opposed this movement in the 16th century, which was effectively curbed only in the 18th and 19th centuries.

During the first centuries of this second period the monastic life is faithfully practiced under its two aspects, eremitic and cenobitic. The solitaries live independently in their hermitages and in their cells, now isolated, now gathered under a single superior (and then they are called sketes). The cenobites live in the great monasteries, subject to a rule (typicon) and to a superior (hegumen) who, assisted by his council, governs and administers the cenobium. Each monastery has its own tribunal and its own novitiate (first of one year, then of two or three). Profession has three degrees: rasophoroi, microschemes and megaloschemes. The first two categories are reserved for external and manual work, the megaloschemes for the ancient ascetic prerogatives: prayer, contemplation, austerity; all are obliged to live in poverty, chastity and obedience.

All the cells, the monasteries and the territory stand under the jurisdiction of the Protos. Formerly three times, and later twice a year, all the hegumens went to the residence of the Protos, which is autonomous, for the election of his counselors and to deliberate on the common interests of the peninsula. The Protos enjoys special privileges: he receives the blessing (σφραγίς) from the patriarch of Constantinople and the dispensation to the other hegumens.

With the decline of the authority of the Protos following the increased wealth and power of the great monasteries, which gradually usurp his authority, the second period of the history of Athos comes to an end in the 16th century. The name of the Protos appears for the last time in the official acts of 1584.

3rd period. - The 17th and 18th centuries mark the relaxation of Athonite monasticism. Idiorrhythmia continues from the religious point of view to undermine monastic discipline and from the economic point of view to threaten the very existence of the monasteries through bad administration and indebtedness. The patriarch Paisius II in 1744 sought to restore the economy of the Hagiorites, and Gabriel IV, besides having attempted with a new typicon of restoring monastic observance and returning authority to the Protos, reconstituted in 1783 on solid foundations the central power by establishing that the twenty monasteries should have a representative at the seat of Karyes with a permanent council, while a commission of four members chosen in turn from among the representatives of four monasteries (divided into five groups of four) constituted the executive power.

During this time there were also attempts at rapprochement with the Roman See. The Propaganda activated the long-studied project of founding a school on Mount A., while some Athonite monks went to Constantinople to attend the school of the Jesuits. Likewise a revival of scholarly activity was noted with the founding of an ecclesiastical academy in the monastery of Vatopedi, called the Athoniade, of which a remnant still survives at Karyes.

Thanks to the constant work of the patriarchs of Constantinople, the discipline of A. was increasingly improved and standardized. From 1785 to the middle of the 20th century, eleven monasteries out of twenty returned to the observance of the cenobitic life standardized by the typicon (the eighth of the series) which the patriarch Gregory V imposed in 1810 on all the monasteries. From the administrative point of view it was established that the properties which all the monasteries possessed in Wallachia, Moldavia, Bessarabia and the Caucasus should remain in the ownership of the Russian and Romanian governments that dominated those regions, provided however that with the revenues only the monasteries of their own nationals be maintained.

4th period. - After the Balkan wars at the beginning of the 20th century, the territory passed from the Turks - who kept a kaimakan at Karyes as representative of the government without interfering in the internal affairs of the monasteries - to Greece, by virtue of the treaty of Bucharest, confirmed by that of Lausanne (1923). According to the constitutional charter the Hellenic State recognizes Mount A. as an autonomous province and appoints as its representative a monarch with diplomatic rank and privileges. Ecclesiastically A. constitutes a patriarchal exarchate, over which therefore the patriarch of Constantinople exercises his full jurisdiction.

At present in all the monasteries of A. the oligarchic regime has been substituted for the monarchical one in force until the times of Gabriel IV. At the head of the whole monastic federation is the Holy Epistasia composed of four members taken in turn from a group of four monasteries. The representatives of the twenty monasteries form the Holy Community (ἐρὰ κοινότης). In each monastery the hegumen is independent in spiritual matters. For its general government the Epitropia of three or four members is appointed, which executes the decisions of the Gerontia, or council of elders. The Diceo (ὁ Δικαῖος), as superior, governs the skete with his council of epitropi, but he cannot exceed the decrees of the Gerontia, composed of the superiors of the kalibes (καλύβαλ), that is, of the cells that form the skete. Only in the monastery of St. Panteleimon and in the two sketes of St. Andrew and St. Elias, where the Russians are in the majority, has the monarchical power of the hegumen or of the local superior remained in force.

As for the monasteries, each of them is autonomous and is regulated by its own typicon which must be approved by the council of the Holy Community. An essential distinction must be established between strictly cenobitic observance and idiorrhythmic observance. The former has its foundations in the traditions most dear to traditional monasticism: community of life in all its particulars, community of goods administered by the local authority. Idiorrhythmic monasticism, on the other hand, is composed of a certain number of families that live separately, with their own property, with their own novices and with their own occupations under the guidance of a superior of theirs called geronto. They assemble only for the sacred offices in the main church of the cenobium in which they are lodged. To direct this convent one of the gerontes is elected each year, who has at his service a certain number of monk administrators and who can receive novices. The common goods of the monastery are divided among the different families which in their turn must render certain services. The internal organization of the cenobia is more or less what we have described above: novitiate, profession, ordinations, internal and external work, ascesis, officiation and fasts. Naturally among the idiorrhythmics the regime of life is more relaxed. A cenobitic monastery today cannot pass to idiorrhythmic observance. From the 14th century the strict dependence of the cells and sketes on the dominant monasteries is increasingly noted. In the 17th century this dependence, as today, is complete. The relations between the one and the others are determined by a special typicon which takes the form of a pact with clauses referring to the financial and temporal administration of the goods and of the internal life. In the sketes the observance is more austere, while in the cells the monks are more devoted to field work.

Statistics of M. A. - List of the twenty monasteries according to hierarchical order:

1. 1. Lavra of St. Athanasius (963), idiorrhythmic.
2. 2. Vatopedi (972-80), idiorrhythmic.
3. 3. Iviron (ca. 980), idiorrhythmic.
4. 4. Chilandar (second half of the 12th century), idiorrhythmic, Serbian.
5. 5. Dionysiou (middle of the 14th century), cenobium.
6. 6. Kutlumusiu (middle of the 13th century), cenobium.
7. 7. Pantocrator (second half of the 14th century), idiorrhythmic.
8. 8. Xeropotamu (perhaps 10th century), idiorrhythmic.

9. Zografu (end of the 10th century), cenobium, Bulgarian.
10. Dochiariu (ca. 976), idiorrhythmic.
11. Karakalu (after 1071), cenobium.
12. Filoteu (before 992), idiorrhythmic.
13. Simopetra (middle of the 14th century), cenobium.
14. Paulu (perhaps end of the 10th century), cenobium.
15. Stauroniceta (end of the 10th century), idiorrhythmic.
16. Xenophon (end of the 10th century), cenobium.
17. Grigoriu (14th century), cenobium.
18. Esfigmenu (11th century), cenobium.
19. Rossiku or St. Panteleimon (13th century), cenobium, Russian.
20. Constamonitu (11th century), cenobium.

In addition there are 14 sketes with ca. 500 kalibes and 205 separate cells; some establishments (καθίσματα) for monks and several hermitages.

Placido de Meester

II. ART

The artistic production of Mount Athos, which spans from the 10th to the 18th century, develops with a certain constancy and continuity of characteristics, such that it constitutes almost a regional variety within the broader framework of Byzantine art.

1. Architecture

The numerous monasteries of Athos are generally similar in form, even though they belong to quite different periods. Surrounded by a circuit of walls with square, polygonal or circular towers, sometimes domed, they consist of a vast courtyard around which the monks' dwellings are arranged — small quarters with enclosed balconies and porticoes, often on two floors. At the center of the courtyard is the common church (καθολικῶν), preceded by a fountain for purifications (φιτῶλῃ), protected by a circular shrine. The churches, beginning with the oldest ones of Lavra (10th century), Vatopedi (11th century), Chilandar (late 13th century) and Iviron, belong to the cruciform type inscribed in a square or rectangle with transverse arms ending in semicircular apses; in addition to the central dome, in the more complex structures there are smaller domes over the arms. Another characteristic of the sacred buildings of Athos is that they are preceded by a highly developed domed narthex, called λιτή from the processions that take place in it. The external decoration of the churches of Athos often features blind arcades. A similar arrangement is also found in the more recent buildings, such as the monastery of St. Paul (15th century) and the numerous ones of the following century, among which those of Xenophon, Dionysiou, Dochiariou, etc., are to be remembered. Chapels and oratories are also very frequent, sometimes quite interesting for their pictorial decorations.

2. Painting

The study of Athonite paintings is made quite complex not only by the tradition that indefinitely prolongs the persistence of older characteristics, but also by the continuous restorations to which the frescoes were subjected. Their uniform character is also revealed in the arrangement of the scenes and in the decorative system of the various churches, which is repeated with few variations. In Dochiariou there is perhaps the most common example of such an arrangement: in the dome is the Almighty (Pantocrator) among the angels and prophets; in the pendentives are the evangelists; in the apse the Madonna with the Divine Liturgy and the hierarchies; in the vaults are represented the twelve major feasts; on the walls are depicted the martyrs and saints; above the entrance of the nave is the Prayer (δέησις), with Christ enthroned between the Virgin and the Baptist; on both sides of the doors is the Last Judgment. The oldest frescoes, from the early years of the 14th century, are those of the monastery of Chilandar and of Vatopedi; while reflecting the general characteristics proper to the Palaeologan renaissance, they are linked to the Serbian regional manner. Of more purely Macedonian style, on the other hand, are the 15th-century frescoes of the chapel of St. George in the monastery of St. Paul, attributed to Andronicus of Byzantium. The greatest flourishing of Athonite painting occurs in the 16th century; Emmanuel Panselinos, author of the frescoes of the Protaton of Karyes, extolled by historical sources, confers on the Macedonian forms a singular modernity due to the contacts he had with Italian art. Panselinos had numerous followers, but perhaps his manner, too vigorous and original, did not succeed in prevailing over the traditional Cretan manner, represented by other masters such as Theophanes of Crete, who worked in the monastery of Lavra (1535), and Zorzi, who painted in the monastery of Dionysiou (1547). At Vatopedi there are some mosaics of the 11th century. Noteworthy are the portable images, also from the Cretan school. We also recall the portable mosaics of the monasteries of Vatopedi and Lavra and the many miraculous icons. The monasteries of Athos also preserve very numerous illuminated manuscripts.

3. Sculptures and relics

In the churches there are numerous decorative works of sculpture from the Byzantine and post-Byzantine period, especially presbyterial enclosures. We also mention the bronze doors of the church of Vatopedi. The quantity of precious objects preserved in the treasuries is very great, such as reliquaries, staurothekes, Gospel bindings, liturgical vessels, steatite plaques (the twelve feasts of Christ at Vatopedi), encolpia, etc. The following are particularly mentioned: the staurotheke of Lavra (10th century); the jasper cup of Vatopedi (14th century); a diptych with the figures of Christ and the Virgin (14th century). The religious community of Athos preserved its own pictorial tradition, attested by a collection of precepts of artistic practice (the so-called "Book of the Painters of Mount Athos", more properly Ἐρμηνεία τῶν ζωγράφων). This treatise, even if in its currently known redaction it does not go back beyond the 18th century, reflects the continuity of a school of painters which, though confined to the regional sphere, has its origins in antiquity and is reflected throughout the entire Eastern-Byzantine world; therefore the "Book" is of great interest for the history of artistic theory. See Plates XXV-XXVI.

Vincenzo Golzio