The Garden of the Virgin
The Garden of the Virgin Apart from its strong expression of the faith of countless generations of believers and their devotion to God, 20 monasteries of Mount Athos are monuments of culture and art to the world.
Twenty monasteries and 1,830 residents in an area of 336 km ², on the Athos peninsula of Halkidiki in Macedonia ( are the world famous Mount Athos, the unique self-governed part of the Greek state, which is characterized as "Autonomous Monastic State" and is completely dedicated to prayer and worship of God.
The peninsula of Mount Athos is the easternmost and more "wild" than the three individual peninsulas of Halkidiki (Kassandra Pallini, Logan Sithonia and Athos or Agion Oros). The peninsula is covered by Mount Athos, which culminates at 2033 meters and connected to Halkidiki with the narrow isthmus of Xerxes.
Mount Athos is the center of Orthodox Christian monasticism with great national monuments, historical, religious, and cultural value on a global scale and from 1988 on the list of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage of UNESCO Belongs politically to the Foreign Ministry and the religious jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
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| The Garden of the Virgin |
In the beginning ...
More detail, The Garden of the Virgin:
It is not known exactly when Christianity spread to Athos. When a Russian tradition she brought the Virgin to appear in the area and the people to embrace Christianity. So the Holy Mountain was established to be called as "clergy and garden of the Virgin."
According to another tradition, Constantine the Great built on Athos most temples, which has not been established by research. However, during the 4th century there were Christians, traces the fate of which remain unknown. It is possible to individual hermits lived as ascetics in Athos during the fourth and fifth centuries, and were numerous in the 9th century, when it became the first organization in efforts to monastic communities. The Garden of the Virgin
During the second half of the 9th century, built in the northern part, called Great Spot, the first convent and then defined the borders of Mount Athos and banned him from entering the laity, not the exception, and the shepherds. So Athos began an exclusive place ascetics and "St. oikitirio life."
From a historical perspective, however, the main reasons for the growth of monasticism on Mount Athos was the previous dissolution of ancient cities, resulting in the entire space is empty and therefore suitable for hermits, the spread of the enemies of the Byzantines in the east, where destroyed the oldest monasteries there and iconoclasm which erupted in Istanbul, because of which many monks sought a new site as a "refuge".
Monasticism on Mount Athos began in the 8th century and the next century Mount Athos is now and historically the most important monastic center of the time and all subsequent times. The first hermit monks settled at the beginning of the peninsula where the ground was smooth, but because of the raids of the Saracen pirates began slowly moved in completely inaccessible areas in the peninsula.
Recognition The Garden of the Virgin.
The autonomous status of Mount Athos was first recognized internationally before the recognition of the sovereignty of the Greek state in Halkidiki, with the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, according to which "the monks of Mount Athos, whatever their country of origin, maintained possessions and its earlier strengths and without exception enjoy absolute equality of rights and benefits. "
