02 — Athos and the Gathering of Sources
Paisiy’s monastic life on the Holy Mountain — at the monasteries of Hilandar and Zograph, the two houses most associated with the Slavs — and the labor of research that preceded his book. As a procurator (taxidiot) sent to collect alms, he traveled through the Bulgarian lands and beyond, and it was in that capacity that he gathered the Slavonic chronicles, the Russian translations of Mauro Orbini and Caesar Baronius, and the Athonite manuscripts out of which the History was made.
Tradition: Bulgarian Orthodox
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| monk-of-hilandar-and-zograph.md | His monastic life: entry at Hilandar c. 1745, ordination and rise to proegumen; the two Slavonic houses of Athos; and the travels as taxidiot (procurator) that carried him through the Bulgarian lands and made him a witness to his people’s condition. |
| the-search-for-the-sources.md | The gathering of materials: Slavonic chronicles and Athonite manuscripts; the journey to the Habsburg lands (Sremski Karlovci) in 1761; and the two decisive printed sources — Mauro Orbini’s Il regno degli Slavi and Caesar Baronius’s Annals — which Paisiy read in their Russian translations. |
See Also
- 01 — Foundations — the world and origins that brought him to Athos
- 03 — The Slavo-Bulgarian History — the book the sources made possible
- Orthodoxy: Monasticism — the monastic life within which he worked