Simonopetra Monastery

Interesting facts

The monks traditionally number the floors from the top down, so the highest storey is the first floor and the lowest the last.

The monastery is built so tightly onto its crag that the living rock runs up through its lower floors.

The fire of 1581 killed a large part of the brotherhood, and the abbot Evgenios travelled to the Danubian principalities to raise money for rebuilding.

The eastern wing, built after the great fire of 1891, was paid for mostly with donations raised in Russia.

In 1368 the Serbian despot Jovan Uglješa issued a chrysobull, a golden-sealed charter, in the monastery's favour.

According to the Russian pilgrim Isaiah, by the end of the 15th century the monastery had become a Bulgarian house.

Its arsanas, the fortified harbour building on the shore far below, was completed in 1567 with funds from a Wallachian noble.

Before building on the rock, Simon is said to have lived as a hermit in a nearby cave; the Church later honoured him as Saint Simon the Myrrh-bearer.

In recent centuries most of its monks came from Ionia in Asia Minor, before the brotherhood dwindled in the mid-20th century.

Elder Aimilianos, who brought the new community from Meteora, served as abbot from 1974 until 2000.

Why it is worth it

Simonopetra, "Simon's Rock", is the most dizzying of the monasteries of Mount Athos: a tall block of stone walls and wooden balconies that grows directly out of a crag on the peninsula's southern coast, some 330 metres above the Aegean. From the sea it looks less like a building than like a continuation of the rock itself, its rows of balconies hanging over the void. It is often described as the boldest construction on the Holy Mountain, and it is best appreciated from a passing boat, where the full height of rock and walls can be taken in at once.

Tradition holds that the monastery was founded in the thirteenth century by the hermit Simon the Athonite, who saw a vision of the Mother of God on the rock on the night of the Nativity and named the place New Bethlehem; the monastery is still dedicated to the Nativity of Christ. In 1364 the Serbian ruler Jovan Uglješa paid for a major renewal, and later princes, including Michael the Brave of Wallachia, helped after disasters. Fire has been the monastery's great enemy: blazes in 1581, 1626 and 1891 destroyed much of it, and the building seen today was completed in 1902 after the last fire, reusing the old site on the same narrow summit.

In the twentieth century the community dwindled almost to nothing, until 1973, when a group of monks from the Great Meteoron monastery at Meteora, led by Elder Aimilianos, settled here and revived it. Today it ranks thirteenth in the hierarchy of the Athonite monasteries and is home to around fifty monks. Its choir became known far beyond Athos through recordings of Byzantine chant, above all the hymn "Agni Parthene" released in 1990, which carried the sound of the monastery's services to listeners around the world.

Getting there

Mount Athos is a self-governing monastic state reached only by sea, and only men may enter, with a special permit (diamonitirion) collected at the Pilgrims' Bureau in Ouranoupoli. Kavala is about 84 km away across the water and its airport (KVA) about 86 km, but the practical route is via Thessaloniki, from where scheduled buses run to Ouranoupoli. Ferries from Ouranoupoli run along the coast towards the port of Dafni and bring pilgrims to the monastery in about an hour; women can see Simonopetra from the boat cruises that sail along the coast.

Simonopetra Monastery

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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