Атон по времето на св. Климент Охридски
Mount Athos at the Time of St. Clement

Author(s): Kyrill Pavlikianov
Subject(s): Language studies, Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Кирило-Методиевски научен център при Българска академия на науките
Summary/Abstract: The article analyses the earliest sources referring to the presence of monks and the existence of monastic foundations on Mount Athos, a phenomenon which could be dated to the period 840–916. In 843 monks of Athos are mentioned as having attended the official restoration of the cult to the icons in Constantinople. The Lives of St. Peter the Athonite and St. Euthymius of Thessalonica make it clear that during the second half of the 9th century Mount Athos was a harsh place to live and exactly that peculiarity had attracted a plethora of hermits, who evidently perceived Athos as one of the numerous Byzantine “holy monastic mountains”, such as Mount Latros and the Bithynian Olympus in Asia Minor. The prosopography of late 9th century Athos is very restricted and comprises only 10 names: the saints Peter the Athonite, Euthymius of Thessalonica and Blasius of Amorion, the monks John Kolobos, Joseph, Symeon, Onouphrius and George, and the protos Andrew (908). The Athonite monasteries of the period 840–916, we are cognizant of, are only two, the enigmatic “Monastery of Athos” and the “Monastery of Clement” (not of St. Clement!), which were both absorbed by the monastery of Iviron, a Georgian monastic house founded in 980. However, based on the archives of Mount Athos, by the end of the 10th century about fifty minor monastic foundations were already functioning in the Holy Mountain.

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