The Ruling Monasteries

Twenty monasteries — no more, no fewer — constitute the sovereign membership of the Holy Mountain. Their number is fixed and cannot be changed; each is autonomous in its internal life and property; and all are ranked in a traditional order of precedence, headed by the Great Lavra of St. Athanasius. Every other monastic settlement on Athos, however venerable, is a dependency of one of these twenty. This file surveys the ruling monasteries, their hierarchy, and the sovereign and unchangeable character of their number.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Athonite)

The Sovereign Twenty

The constitutional units of Athos are its twenty ruling (or sovereign) monasteries. These, and only these, are full members of the monastic republic: they own the whole territory of the peninsula among them, they alone are represented in the Holy Community and eligible for the Epistasia (see The Holy Community and Karyes), and every other monastic establishment on the Mountain — sketes, kellia, kalyves, hermitages — exists as a dependency of one of the twenty (Speake, Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise, Yale, 2002, ch. 12, on the ruling monasteries; the Charter of the Holy Mountain, 1924; see Sketes, Kellia, and the Desert of Athos). The number twenty is fixed and, under the Charter and the constitutional regime, unchangeable: no new ruling monastery may be founded, and none may be dissolved or demoted; a house that declines may be repopulated (as several were in the twentieth-century revival) but not replaced (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 12; the Charter of the Holy Mountain, 1924).

Each ruling monastery is autonomous in its own life. Within the common law of the Mountain and the supervision of the Community and the Patriarchate, a monastery governs itself: it elects its own abbot (in the coenobitic houses, an abbot who holds office for life), keeps its own rule and liturgical usage, administers its own property and dependencies, and receives and forms its own monks (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 12; on the coenobitic constitution see Coenobitic and Idiorrhythmic). The Mountain is thus a federation of twenty self-governing communities, not a single centralised order.

The Order of Precedence

The twenty are ranked in a fixed hierarchical order of precedence, which governs seating in the Community, the order of signing, and the rotation of the Epistasia (see The Holy Community and Karyes). The order, with the traditional national or founding association of the non-Greek houses noted, is (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 12, and the appendix of monasteries; the Charter of the Holy Mountain, 1924):

  1. Great Lavra (Megisti Lavra) — the senior house, founded by St. Athanasius the Athonite in 963 (see The Early Hermits and Saint Athanasius)
  2. Vatopedi — one of the great early foundations, among the largest and wealthiest houses
  3. Iviron — founded in the later tenth century by Georgians (the “Iberians”); now a Greek community (see The Pan-Orthodox Mountain)
  4. Hilandar (Chilandar) — the Serbian monastery, restored by St. Sava and his father St. Symeon (Stefan Nemanja)
  5. Dionysiou — founded in the fourteenth century by St. Dionysios of Koritsa
  6. Koutloumousiou
  7. Pantokratoros
  8. Xiropotamou
  9. Zographou — the Bulgarian monastery
  10. Docheiariou
  11. Karakalou
  12. Philotheou
  13. Simonopetra (Simonos Petra) — the dramatic cliff-top house founded by St. Simon
  14. St. Paul’s (Agiou Pavlou)
  15. Stavronikita — the last of the twenty to be founded, in the sixteenth century
  16. Xenophontos
  17. Gregoriou
  18. Esphigmenou
  19. St. Panteleimon (Agiou Panteleimonos, the Rossikon) — the Russian monastery (see The Pan-Orthodox Mountain)
  20. Konstamonitou

This order is one of honour and precedence, not of wealth or size at any given moment; the ranking reflects the historical seniority and standing of the houses as fixed by tradition and the Charter, and it does not change with the fluctuating fortunes of the communities (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 12). Stavronikita, sixteenth in rank, is the youngest of the twenty; no monastery has been added since, and the roll has been closed ever since (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, on Stavronikita as the last founded).

The Character of the Great Houses

The senior houses illustrate the range of Athonite monastic foundation. The Great Lavra, first in rank, is the mother-house of the Mountain, the foundation of St. Athanasius, and the burial place of many Athonite saints; its katholikon (main church) set the architectural type — the Athonite church plan, with lateral apses (choroi) for the two monastic choirs — that the later houses followed (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, chs. 2 and 8, on the Lavra and the Athonite church type). Vatopedi and Iviron, the second and third houses, are among the largest and most richly endowed, with great libraries and collections of relics and wonderworking icons; Iviron is the home of the Portaitissa (see Relics and Wonderworking Icons). The houses vary greatly in setting and character — from the fortress-like coastal monasteries to the vertiginous cliff-top Simonopetra — but all share the common Athonite pattern: a walled enclosure around a central courtyard, the katholikon at its heart, the refectory facing the church, the cells, chapels, library, and treasury within the walls, and the tower and the arsenal (harbour) that recall the centuries when the Mountain had to defend itself against pirates and raiders (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 8, on Athonite monastic architecture).

The revival of the late twentieth century restored many of these houses to vigorous life, in several cases through the arrival of a whole brotherhood under a charismatic elder — Simonopetra, Philotheou, Stavronikita, and others were repopulated and renewed in this way from the 1960s and 1970s (Speake, Renewal in Paradise, 2002, ch. 6; see The Twentieth-Century Revival). By the same movement the last idiorrhythmic houses returned to the coenobitic life, so that all twenty are today coenobitic (see Coenobitic and Idiorrhythmic).

See Also

References

  • Speake, Graham. Mount Athos: Renewal in Paradise. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002. (Ch. 12 on the ruling monasteries, their number, precedence, and autonomy; ch. 2 on the Great Lavra; ch. 8 on Athonite monastic architecture and the Athonite church type; ch. 6 on the repopulation of the houses; the appendix listing the twenty monasteries.)
  • Charter of the Holy Mountain (Katastatikos Chartis), 1924, ratified 1926. (The fixed number and precedence of the twenty ruling monasteries.)
  • Bryer, Anthony, and Mary Cunningham, eds. Mount Athos and Byzantine Monasticism. Aldershot: Variorum/Ashgate, 1996. (The foundations and histories of the individual houses.)