30 facts about Mount Athos

• 30 facts about Mount Athos

Mount Athos - the only place on Earth where officially forbidden to be women. However, this is the Holy Mountain is considered to be the earthly destiny of the Virgin.

1. Athos was considered a sacred place even in pre-Christian times. There were temples of Apollo and Zeus. Athos was named one of the Titans, who, during the war with the gods threw a large rock. He fell, he became a mountain, which gave the name of titanium.

2. Athos formally considered Greek territory, but in fact - is the world's only independent monastic republic. This is confirmed by Article 105 of the Greek Constitution. The supreme power here belongs to the Holy Kinot, which consists of representatives delegated to him Athos monasteries. The executive power is the Holy Epistasiya. Holy and Sacred Kinot Epistasiya located in caries (Kars) - the capital of the monastic republic.

3. The secular power, however, it is also represented on Athos. There is a governor, police officers, postal workers, traders, artisans, clinic staff, and recently opened a bank branch. The Governor is appointed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Greece, he is responsible for security and order on Mount Athos.

4. The first major monastery on Mount Athos was founded in 963 by St. Athanasius of Athos, which is considered the founder of the entire structure of the monastic life, received the Holy Mount. Today, the monastery of Saint Athanasius is known as the Great Lavra.

5. Athos - earthly destiny of the Virgin. According to legend, in 48 Holy Mother of God, to receive the grace of the Holy Spirit, he went to Cyprus, but the ship was caught in a storm and came to Mount Athos. After her sermons, local pagans believed in Jesus and to Christianity. Since then, the very Blessed Virgin is the Patroness of Athos monastic community.

6. Cathedral temple "of the capital of Mount Athos" Carey - Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary - the oldest on Mount Athos. According to legend, it was founded in 335 by Constantine the Great.

7. On Athos there is still a Byzantine times. New day starts at sundown, so Athos time differs from the Greek - from 3 hours in the summer, up to 7 hours in winter.

8. In its heyday Athos included 180 Orthodox monasteries. The first monastic hermitages appeared here in VIII century. Autonomy under the protection of the Byzantine Empire, the republic received in 972.

9. Currently, 20 active monasteries Mount Athos, home to about two thousand brothers.

10 Russian monastery (Ksilurgu) was founded before 1016, in 1169 he was transferred to the monastery Panteleimon, then became the center of Russian monks on Mount Athos. Among the monasteries of Mount Athos, in addition to Greek, includes Russian St. Panteleimon Monastery, Bulgarian and Serbian monasteries, as well as a Romanian monastery, enjoying the right of self-government.

11. Camaya highest point of the peninsula of Mount Athos (2033 m) - the peak of Mount Athos. There is a temple in honor of the Transfiguration, built, according to legend, St Athanasius of Athos in 965 on the site of a pagan temple.

12. abbots and Patron Saint of the Holy Mountain is the Blessed Virgin.

13. The strict hierarchy of the monasteries on Mount Athos approved. In the first place - the Great Lavra, on the twentieth - Monastery Konstamonitou.

14. Karula (from the Greek "coils, ropes, chains, by which monks are mountain trails and lift upward provisions") - the name of a rocky inaccessible terrain in the southwest of Mount Athos, where the caves Strive to the most ascetic hermits.

15. Until the early 1990s, the monasteries on Mount Athos were both cenobitic and osobnozhitelnymi. After 1992, all the monasteries became cenobitic. However, some monasteries still remain osobnozhitelnymi.

16. Despite the fact that Mount Athos - earthly destiny of the Virgin, here women are not allowed and "female beings." This prohibition is enshrined in the Charter of Mount Athos. There is a legend that in 422, the daughter of Theodosius the Great Princess Placidus visited the Holy Mountain, but to enter the monastery of Vatopedi prevented her voice coming from the Mother of God. The ban was violated twice: during the Turkish rule and during the civil war in Greece (1946-1949), when the women and children took refuge in the forests of the Holy Mountain. For infiltration of Mount Athos for women criminalized - 8-12 months' imprisonment.

17. The plurality of relics and 8 known miraculous icons stored on Athos.

18. In 1914-1915 90 monks Panteleimon Monastery had been mobilized into the army, which gave rise to suspicions among the Greeks, that the Russian government is sending in Mount Athos monks disguised as soldiers and spies.

20. One of the most important relics of Athos - the belt of the Virgin. Therefore Athos monks, especially the monks of Vatopedi monastery, is often called "svyatopoyasnikami".

21. Despite the fact that the Mount Athos - a holy place, there is not all peaceful. Since 1972, the monks of the monastery Esfigmenskogo under the slogan "Orthodoxy or death" refuse to commemorate the Universal and other Orthodox patriarchs, having regard to the Pope. These contacts have a negative attitude of representatives of all without exception, the Mount Athos monasteries, but their actions are not so radical. 22. Before sunrise, before the wake up people in the world, Mount Athos is served up to 300 liturgies.

23. To access the laity to Athos required a special document - diamanterion - paper printing Athos - a two-headed Byzantine eagle. The number of pilgrims is limited, at a time may visit the peninsula not more than 120 people. Athos annually visited by some 10,000 pilgrims. Orthodox clerics to visit the Holy Mountain also need to obtain prior permission from the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

24. In 2014, the Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I called Athos monasteries limit the number of foreign-born monks on Mount Athos in the level of 10%, and announced the decision to stop issuing permits for foreign monks to settle in the Greek-speaking monasteries.

25. September 3, 1903 in the Russian St. Panteleimon Monastery on Mount Athos monk Gabriel captures the distribution of alms to the poor monks siromaham, pilgrims and strangers. It was planned that this will be the last such distribution. However, after the occurrence of the negative in the photo turned out to be ... the very Mother of God. Of course, we continued to distribute alms. The negative of this photo has been uncovered on Mount Athos in the past year.

26. St. Andrew's monastery on Mount Athos, as well as other Russian settlements in the early 1910s was a hotbed imiaslavie, in 1913, his brethren were using Russian troops expelled in Odessa.

27. The first ruler of Russia to visit the Holy Mountain, was Vladimir Putin. His visit took place in September 2007.

28. In 1910, Athos was about 5000 Russian monks - far more than the clergy of all other nations combined. The budget of the Russian government had an article, according to which every year Greece was allocated 100,000 rubles in gold for the maintenance of the Athos monasteries. This subsidy in 1917 abolished the government of Kerensky. 29. After the end of the Civil War in Russia, the Russian visit to Mount Athos has been virtually forbidden for persons of the USSR and for members of the Russian emigration until 1955.

30. The word "Athos" Many, without knowing it, are faced with the reading of the novel by Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers ". Athos name - the same as the "Mount Athos". In writing this word is the letter "theta", which denotes the interdental sound that does not exist in the Russian language. Her transliterated at different times in different ways. And as "f" - since the writing of "Theta" is similar to "f", and as "t" - as the "th" in Latin, "theta" passed letters. As a result, we have a tradition to name the mountain - "Athos", and the character "Athos", although we are talking about one and the same word.