The History of Hilandar

Mount Athos, also known as the Holy Mount, is part of the Chalchidic Peninsula in northeastern Greece.

It is surrounded by the Aegean Sea and exclusively populated by Eastern Orthodox monks.

In order not to disturb the contemplation of the monks, women and children have been barred from even visiting the peninsula for over a thousand years.

From approximately the sixth century, when the first monk-hermits settled there, until the present time, the Holy Mount has played an exceptionally important role in the life of the Christian and Orthodox Church.

Many of its monks are among the saints of the Orthodox Church, as well as among the most learned people of various periods of history.

At the time of its greatest flourishing, the Holy Mount had some three hundred monasteries and over ten thousand monks. Currently, there are twenty monasteries and over a thousand monks.

The spiritual Head of the Holy Mount is the Patriarch of Constantinople, while the Holy Mount itself is a protectorate of the Greek state, on whose territory it is located.

Internal affairs of the Holy Mount are governed by a monastic government made up of twenty monks, one from each monastery, who are elected and serve for a specified time.

The chairman of that government is the Abbot of the Holy Mount. Mount Athos is the world’s oldest continuing democracy, with a constitution that dates to the tenth century.

The Holy Mount has its own capital, Karyes, where visitors and pilgrims receive a visa giving them permission to make brief stays.

The life of the monks on the Holy Mount is spent in prayer,

in meditation,

and in work.

Until the very end of the twentieth century one could travel to the Holy Mount only by boat. Once there, there were no means of transportation but a bus,

which operated during the summer months between Daphne, the main port, and Karyes, and between Karyes and Iveron Monastery.

There were only a few roads, and they were unpaved.

Travel from one monastery to another was normally by foot.

The oldest monastery on the Holy Mount is the Great Lavra, built in 963.

The other nineteen existing monasteries were founded and built in the tenth through the fifteenth centuries.

In the course of centuries, various invaders and plunderers attacked the monasteries on the Holy Mount.

They destroyed or took away

much of the cultural wealth of the Holy Mount.

Frequent fires also contributed to the destruction of many old buildings,

icons, frescoes, and precious manuscripts.

Nevertheless, even today,

the Holy Mount has treasures and invaluable cultural wealth

preserved in its monasteries, sketes, and keliae.  

It should be stressed that the Holy Mount holds a central place in the history of the Orthodox Church.

All the Eastern Orthodox, regardless of nationality,

have supported and honored this

center of spirituality and knowledge.

Of the twenty existing monasteries, three are historically related

to the world of Slavs and are populated primarily or exclusively

by monks of Slavic descent.

St. Panteleimon is Russian.

Zograf is Bulgarian.

And, Hilandar is a Serbian monastery.