Athonite collections: Mount Athos, Greece
By Georgios Alexopoulos
About Mount Athos
Mount Athos – known in Greece as the Holy Mountain (Agion Oros = Άγιον Όρος) – is an Orthodox monastic community situated in the easternmost peninsula of the prefecture of Halkidiki in the region of Macedonia, Northern Greece (Fig. 1). The area is approximately 56km long and 2.5–8.5km wide, it encloses an area of around 360 square kilometres with a mountainous terrain that is dominated by the peak of Athos (2,033m high) at the tip of the peninsula.
Figure 1. Map of the Mount Athos peninsula (András Bereznay, https://www.historyonmaps.com/).
Since 1912, the Athonite community has constituted a self-governed area that is under the sovereignty of the Greek state and is divided into twenty territories governed by twenty ruling monasteries (Papastathis 1993). The monastic community was founded in AD 963, during the Byzantine era, and throughout the centuries has managed to retain a stable status quo which includes certain privileges (Kadas 1986, 11-13). The administrative centre of Mount Athos, Karyes, is located at the centre of the peninsula and half of the monasteries are situated by the sea. With a population of ca. 2,000 monks Mount Athos hosts a pan-Orthodox community and constitutes a very significant sacred site for Eastern Christianity, and a popular pilgrimage destination (Gothóni 1993; Speake 2002, 176-182). Although most of the monks are of Greek origin the brotherhoods have members from around the world. There is a Russian, a Serbian and a Bulgarian monastery as well as two dependencies with Romanian brotherhoods.
Figure 2. A view of the Ahonite peninsula with the peak of Mount Athos in the background (Georgios Alexopoulos).
The Mount Athos Avaton and visitor access
There is no direct road access to the Athonite monasteries so anyone entering the area has to use the ferryboat services that run daily from the nearby towns of Ouranoupolis and Ierissos. Mount Athos is well-known for following a century-old tradition that bans all women from accessing the peninsula. The so-called Avaton (Άβατον = inaccessible in Greek) is based on a traditional monastic rule that has been followed from the Byzantine period and also includes a ban on female animals (Talbot 1996). This regulation is deemed to exist in order to support the virtue of celibacy, followed by all monks, and to prohibit stockbreeding activities that would be too commercial and therefore unfitting to a monastic community (Ware 1996, p. 9). The Avaton rule is often attributed by the Athonite monks to a legendary visit to the area by the Virgin Mary, who serves as the patron and protector of Mount Athos and to whom the area has since been exclusively dedicated (Kadas 1986, 10). This regulation has received some criticism but is highly valued by the Athonite monks who are keen to preserve it as part of their everyday life (Alexopoulos and Fouseki 2016).
Figure 3. Passengers boarding one of the ferries that transports visitors to Mount Athos (Georgios Alexopoulos).
In order the protect the special nature of the Athonite community a strict quota system has been established for regulating incoming visitors and pilgrims. People entering the peninsula have to obtain the so-called diamonitirion: a visitation permit that is issued by the Mount Athos Pilgrims’ Bureau. Applications for these permits have to be made well in advance. Only 110 such permits are issued per day: 100 for Greek citizens and 10 for citizens of other countries. All visitors need to be male adults and any male visitors under the age of 18 need to be accompanied by their fathers (or by a guardian with parental consent). The usual diamonitirion is valid for four calendar days (three overnight stays in the monasteries) but there are also special permits that can be issued by individual monasteries or the Athonite authorities. This visitor quota does not include the laymen that are employed at the various monastic establishments and any official guests.
Athonite history and cultural heritage
Archaeological and historical evidence suggests that the Athonite peninsula was populated after the sixth century BC and the area contained several Ancient Greek cities (Kadas 1986, 9). With the spread of Christianity the area attracted hermits and monks, and small monastic settlements began to form already from the eighth century AD (Speake 2002, 27-28). The first monastery of Mount Athos, the Great Lavra, was founded in 963 by a Byzantine imperial decree, and the community gradually became a major spiritual centre for Eastern Christianity. The Athonite monasteries have been regarded as a cradle of civilisation for Greeks and several other Balkan and Eastern European nations, and became ‘the principal spiritual home of the Orthodox Church in 1054’ (UNESCO WHC 2024). The area retained its privileges during the Ottoman period (1430 to 1912) and from 1912 has been protected by the Greek Constitution as part of the Greek state (Papastathis 1993). The special privileges of the monks were retained even during the occupation of Greece by the Axis powers (1941-1944).
Figure 4. The katholikon (main church) of the Great Lavra monastery (Georgios Alexopoulos).
Throughout the centuries the monasteries of Mount Athos have played an important role in spiritual movements and conflicts, in the spread of monasticism and its influence to the Balkans and Eastern Europe, and have produced important figures in the ecclesiastical, political and cultural history of the Greek and the wider Orthodox world (Speake 2002). At the same time, the monasteries have accumulated and preserved a very rich and diverse cultural heritage that consists of both tangible and intangible heritage elements within a very special cultural landscape. The universal value of this heritage has been internationally recognised through the inclusion of the area in UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 1988 (UNESCO WHC 2024).
Natural heritage
Mount Athos is famous for its natural environment. The beautiful and diverse landscape includes mountains, forests, and a long coastline as well as a rich flora and fauna with approximately 35 endemic species. Most of the area belongs to European Union-wide Natura 2000 network for distinctive and endangered European natural sites, and it is also classified as Category V Protected Landscape/Seascape by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature). The outstanding universal value of the Athonite landscape is based on the fact that it is a ‘humanized landscape the characteristics of which are due to persistence of farming practices and traditional arts and crafts linked to the stringent observance of monastic rules’ (ICOMOS 1988).
Figures 5 & 6. Views of the Athonite cultural landscape (Georgios Alexopoulos).
Built environment
There are thousands of structures scattered in the peninsula ranging from ruins of the Classical period to larger and smaller monastic complexes and establishments, with fortresses, towers, churches, chapels, refectories, boathouses and other features that provide a palimpsest of monastic life, past and present. It is deemed that the architectural heritage of Mount Athos epitomizes the medieval and more recent architecture of the Orthodox Balkan area of the last eleven centuries (Theocharides 1996, 205). The layout of the twenty ruling monasteries consists of a fortified enclosure, with one or two entrances, that encloses an open paved area, the courtyard, which usually contains the katholikon (main church) and several other ancillary buildings. The size of the monasteries varies with the largest establishment, the Great Lavra, covering an area of 15,960 square meters and the smallest, Stavronikita, comprising 1,410 square meters (Pentzikis 2003, 189). Mural paintings decorate the interior walls of almost every church and chapel on the monastic peninsula (and other buildings such as refectories), covering an estimated total surface of about 100,000 square meters (Vocotopoulos 1997, 33). Among these are several examples of masterpieces of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine frescoes representing a great variety of different schools of painting (UNESCO WHC 2024). The Athonite buildings also contain several works of stone sculpture and a variety of elements of interior wood-carved decoration.
Figure 7. The Dohiariou monastery (Georgios Alexopoulos).
Figure 8. The St Panteleimon monastery, also known as ‘the Russian monastery’ (Georgios Alexopoulos).
Figures 9 & 10. (Left) A fortified tower at Iviron monastery – (Right) Mural paintings at the Vatopedi monastery katholikon (Georgios Alexopoulos).
The Athonite collections
All of the Athonite monasteries have preserved a great variety of artefacts dating from the Pre-Christian era to the present. This movable heritage includes objects from different chronological periods and various origins, and consists of both secular artefacts and items that have a liturgical/ecclesiastical use and/or a sacred nature (Papadopoulos 1992; Karakatsanis 1997). Altogether these collections constitute ‘the largest surviving accumulation of Orthodoxy’s heritage in a single locality and must be considered one of Europe’s principal zones of special historical and cultural importance’ (Petherbridge 1993, 126).
Athonite monasteries possess altogether the largest collection of Orthodox portable icons in the world, numbering approximately 20,000 (Tsigaridas 1997, 47). These icons consist of paintings on wooden panels, sometimes double-sided and with various shapes (e.g. cross-formed or diptychs), and some are still used for veneration, liturgies, processions, feasts and private monastic prayer. The Athonite collections contain numerous works of minor arts, luxurious textiles (e.g. gold-embroidered), artefacts of gold- and silversmithery (Loverdou-Tsigarida 1997; Theochari 1997; Iconomaki-Papadopoulou 1997). These objects, belonging to the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine periods, are often of exquisite quality and have been executed in a variety of materials and with different decoration techniques. Among the non-sacred artefacts, the monasteries possess collections of copper-engravings and paper icons, maps, old photographs as well as artefacts of ethnological and folkloric value. The Athonite peninsula has been considered, from the point of view of ethnographic richness, as ‘the richest museum of traditional technology in the Balkans’ (Papadopoulos 1980, 132).
Library and archival collections
The monastic libraries hold approximately 15,000 Greek manuscripts – the largest collection of its kind in the world (Atsalos 1997, 511) – with around 1,000 of these containing manuscript illuminations (Galavaris 1997). It is also estimated that the Athonite monasteries possess more than one third (ca. 3,000) of all the manuscripts of Byzantine chant known in the whole world (Stathis 1997, 555). The Athonite book collections contain more than 200,000 printed books, dating from the fifteenth century to the present (Papadopoulos, Th. 1996, 260). The archival collections include significant numbers of Greek, Slavonic, Romanian, Ottoman and various other documents. Particularly the Greek documents are considered to constitute the only diachronic archival collection from the Byzantine period to the present within Greece (Economidis 1997, 433).
For a collection of images from the Treasures of Mount Athos exhibition catalogue see: https://www.elpenor.org/athos/en/
The intangible dimension of Athonite cultural heritage
The Athonite monks safekeep a wide range of intangible cultural heritage traditions that link to both the cultural landscape and the built environment but also to the collections that are kept in the monasteries. For the Athonite monks themselves, and for many adherents of the Orthodox faith, the primary role of Mount Athos is to serve its spiritual purpose as a monastic community and a pilgrimage destination with a worldwide radiation. The Athonite way of life itself is a living tradition. Today the inhabitants of the peninsula preserve both the early Christian eremitic tradition and the coenobitic form of communal life, while the idiorrythmic form of monasticism, practiced in some of the smaller establishments called sketes, is not found elsewhere in the world anymore (Kadas 1986, p. 10).
The monasteries constitute a place for contemplation, worship, prayer, confession, and spiritual healing (Andriotis 2009). Meanwhile, the monks are still practising old and traditional forms of arts and craftmanship such as icon painting, mural fresco painting and wood-carving. The intangible heritage elements of the Athonite life also embrace the harmonious interaction of traditional farming, forestry and fishing practices with the observance of century-old monastic rules (UNESCO WHC 2024). The monks of Mount Athos have preserved to this day several musical traditions related to Byzantine chanting – which is recognised as a living art that has existed for more than 2,000 years and is part of UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Many brotherhoods are known for their choirs that preserve the cultural traditions of Byzantine chant, a practice that is part of the everyday life of the monks. In the last decades the traditional Athonite culinary heritage has gained worldwide recognition for its nutritional benefits but also as a significant cultural marker that constitutes a good example of the ‘Mediterranean diet’ (also included in UNESCO’s intangible heritage list). This culinary heritage extends from traditional monastic recipes (Epiphanios 2010) to traditional ways of producing olives, wine and honey and other local food products.
Several artefacts, that are deemed to have artistic, historical or other values as tangible heritage, have a very interesting intangible dimension to them. These objects are sometimes used frequently in the everyday life activities whether or not they have been kept together with the other collections (that are stored or displayed). Certain holy icons, wood-carved crosses, sacred vessels (e.g. chalices), incense burners and items of church embroidery are systematically used for the liturgical activities, feasts, processions, sanctifications and other occasions. In some cases this happens in spite of the rarity, heritage value or antiquity of these artefacts (Alexopoulos 2010). In addition, each monastery possesses a collection of holy relics, often placed in elaborate and luxuriously decorated reliquaries. These relics are exhibited to the pilgrims for veneration after the services and are often taken, like the holy icons, outside Mount Athos for processions or to perform miracles. These items have a primarily religious and adorational value and have always been highly valued by adherents of the Orthodox faith (Alexopoulos 2007). To this day these collections constitute one of the few objects openly displayed to the visitors and are often presented after the services to pilgrims who are allowed to venerate them.
In a similar fashion, many famous icons, some of which are believed to be ‘not made by human hand’ (αχειροποίητες) are deemed to be thaumaturgical (i.e. to perform miracles or be wonder-working). Such icons attract the attention and reverence of pilgrims and are often taken outside the peninsula to be venerated by Orthodox Christians who often place offerings (tamata) seeking for help or consolation in various matters (Alexopoulos 2010). These portable holy icons have a predominantly sacred character and have always been safeguarded and looked after by the Athonite monks.
Athonite framework for managing cultural heritage
The Mount Athos monasteries are the primary custodians of the cultural heritage in their territory and have been running things for many centuries according to the Athonite Charter – the community’s main legislative document – along with other written or unwritten regulations adhered to by the Athonite collective authorities and the individual monasteries. Each monastery has responsibility for the movable and immovable heritage property within its own territory, while collective administrative bodies take decisions about the wider peninsula (Papastathis 2004; Alexopoulos 2010). As part of the Greek state, the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and its regional agency, the Ephorate of Antiquities of Chalcidice and Mount Athos, is overseeing the activity conducted in the peninsula and contributes with human and financial resources, expertise and technical support (Efachagor 2024). Among the activities undertaken by the Ephorate are archaeological excavations, architectural restorations and the conservation of artefacts and mural paintings (Harkiolakis 1999, 147-148).
With Greece joining the European Community (currently known as the European Union) in 1981, significant funds were directed to Mount Athos for development works that included interventions on the built environment and its heritage elements (Tachiaos 1993). This led to the creation of a special organisation, the Centre for the Preservation of Athonite Heritage – known as KEDAK – which engages different stakeholders in decision making and encompasses representatives from both the monastic community and the Greek state heritage agencies (Alexopoulos 2013b). This organisation has since shared responsibilities with the Ephorate of Antiquities and has implemented important projects in the monasteries of Mount Athos (KEDAK 2024).
The development of provision for the Athonite Collections
The Athonite monasteries constitute a living religious community that has a long history and tradition. Naturally the interest, care and treatment afforded to the various collections and artefacts that are kept by the brotherhoods have shifted a lot throughout time. For several centuries these collections were kept in strongholds or towers and later in specially designed treasuries or sacristies that did not cater for the maintenance, access and public display of these artefacts (Alexopoulos 2007). Priority was given to protection from pirate raids, theft and fires. Specific rooms or stand-alone structures served as libraries hosting the manuscripts, books and often the archival collections. Some icons (usually the ones not used in the everyday life activities) were kept in specific icon-galleries or icon-depositories (εικονοφυλάκια). Numerous artefacts that had a practical use – such as crosses, sacred vessels, vestments, reliquaries – were stored in the main churches (katholika). Other artefacts were placed in boxes, wall cabinets or cupboards in various spaces according to their functional use (Alexopoulos 2013c). The space used for housing or safekeeping collections and heirlooms (keimelia) was commonly termed as skevofylakio (σκευοφυλάκιo = space for safekeeping sacred vessels), thesavrofylakio (θησαυροφυλάκιο = space for safekeeping treasures) or even keimeliothiki (κειμηλιοθήκη = space for safekeeping keimelia) (Alexopoulos 2013c). These spaces were looked after by members of the brotherhood who were appointed skevofylax (sacristan) and librarian.
A turning point for the creation of the first public displays of the Athone collections and for a more systematic provision for preservation, care and maintenance of cultural heritage, coincided with wider developments in the modern Greek state and internationally. Very crucial obviously was the emergence of several heritage-related professions and the establishment of generic professional guidelines in the latter part of the 21st century. From the 1960s onwards the so-called ‘spiritual renewal’ of the monastic community brought about an influx of monks who were keen to take better care of the cultural resources kept on the peninsula (Petherbridge 1993, 127–128). At the same time, individual heritage professionals, researchers and scholars, often collaborating with the relevant Greek state agencies, conducted projects that gradually introduced new approaches for the improvements of the existing facilities (Papadopoulos 1980). The availability of significant European funds for architectural interventions and infrastructure improvement (under the guidance of the newly established KEDAK) resulted in the relocation of several collections to better equipped or refurbished spaces and to the creation of more appropriate displays. These spaces (displays rather than proper exhibitions) served mainly safekeeping and storage purposes, but demonstrated some first attempts to organise objects in glass cases that could be shown to special visitors and, in a few cases, to the pilgrims coming to the monasteries. No efforts for interpreting and contextualising the displayed objects through information were pursued (Alexopoulos 2013c).
Figure 11. Exterior view of the library of the Iviron monastery (Georgios Alexopoulos).
Figure 12. Exterior view of the building housing the treasury display of the Greal Lavra monastery (Georgios Alexopoulos).
From the 1990s certain Athonite brotherhoods embraced the creation of more sophisticated display spaces that echoed the advances of contemporary museological approaches and brought about the arrangement of artefacts in newly created facilities that resembled modern exhibitions. New treasury exhibitions prepared by Greek heritage professionals and state agencies opened in monasteries such as St Xenofon, Pantokrator, Vatopedi and the Protaton tower at Karyes (Alexopoulos 2013c). In this period the display of Athonite collections outside the monastic peninsula in a major exhibition, for the first time in history, provided an additional impetus for documentation, research and the publication of various aspects of the rich Athonite art, cultural heritage and history. This event was the organisation of the ‘Treasures of Mount Athos’ exhibition held in Thessaloniki in 1997, featuring more than 1,500 artefacts, on the occasion of the city’s activities as Cultural Capital of Europe. In the following decades this was followed by other exhibitions centred around the Athonite collections in several European countries.
Figure 13. Exterior view of the Protaton tower, at the Athonite capital of Karyes (Georgios Alexopoulos).
Figure 14. The Pantokrator monastery treasury exhibition (Georgios Alexopoulos).
Probably the best example of this new tendency to organise and display collections was the opening of the St Xenophon monastery treasury exhibition in 1998 (Papadopoulos 2000). This space was designed following contemporary museum standards with exhibits arranged in thematic units, with captions, labels and informative material (texts, photographs, maps, drawings, small scale replicas) catering for the communication of information to a broader audience (Alexopoulos 2013c).
These features, groundbreaking for the Athonite community, were also accompanied by the employment of traditional Athonite chanting (as background music), the publication of an exhibition guide and the creation of a small shop for the sale of books and other Athonite souvenirs.
Figure 15. The St Xenophon monastery treasury exhibition (Georgios Alexopoulos).
Figure 16. The St Xenophon monastery treasury exhibition (Georgios Alexopoulos).
The aforementioned treasury exhibitions underlined the possibilities of widening access to the Athonite collections: allowing pilgrims and visitors to see, experience and learn about the heritage of Mount Athos. Nevertheless, this also constituted an experiment on the part of a few selected Athonite monasteries (the ones that chose to introduce such new ways of displaying their collections) that required, to some extent, a rethinking of the balance between the monastic way of life and catering for the demands of visitors (Alexopoulos 2013c). Like elsewhere in the world, and within many living religious communities such as monasteries, there is a constant struggle to regulate or avoid what is often perceived as the threat of modernity, the commercialisation, touristification, museumification and heritagisation of traditional lifestyles and values (Alexopoulos 2013a). It is exactly this fear and the difficulty of finding the right balance between new approaches and traditional ones that has hindered a greater acceptance among the Mount Athos community of the public display of their collections. The term ‘museum’ itself seems too inappropriate for the context of the Athonite monasteries, and that is in several ways understandable. Agreement between the monks and the heritage professionals (and the demands and pressures of the outside world, for that matter) on potential changes that could be implemented within the monastic peninsula has not always been possible and has often created tension (Chatzigogas 2005; Alexopoulos 2010; Karydis 2010). However, finding mutually agreeable local solutions has proven to be feasible as long as mindful and sensitive negotiations are taking place in the efforts to take care about the future of the Athonite collections.
Concluding thoughts
The collections of the Mount Athos monasteries are unique and their value has long been recognised on a national and international level. Certain restrictions to the opportunity to conserve, protect, access and publicly display the diverse artefacts and objects have, at times, caused tension among the monastic community and heritage professionals, researchers and other stakeholders. Nevertheless, a gradual change of perceptions towards cultural heritage on the part of the Athonite brotherhoods, coupled with wider recognition and respect towards the values, practices and needs of the local monastic community, on the part of heritage professionals, has created some common ground in terms of the need to preserve the Mount Athos collections for future generations. Balancing the needs of the Athonite monks with contemporary principles, professional standards and practices of conservation, museology and heritage management will always have to be based on a well-intentioned mutual dialogue and the ability to find compromising solutions. At the very heart lies the importance of understanding and catering for the special values credited by the Athonite monks to their collections and the interplay that material and intangible heritage elements have in this context.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the late Dr Stelios Papadopoulos for introducing me to the monasteries of Mount Athos and for inspiring me to engage with the fields of cultural heritage and museum studies. Thanks are also due to all the Athonite monasteries who offered their hospitality and the Athonite fathers who supported my PhD research. I owe gratitude to Professor Tim Williams who was the principal supervisor of my PhD. The financial support for this research was provided by the Greek State Scholarship Foundation (IKY).
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Georgios Alexopoulos is a Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Heritage and an Adjunct Lecturer at the Hellenic Open University. His PhD, conducted at the UCL Institute of Archaeology, focused on the management of Athonite cultural heritage.
