the eastern extension of the Chalcidian Peninsula, is known as ῞Αγιον ῞Ορος (Hágion Óros, “Holy Mountain”); to the present day it has been the center of Orthodox monasticism. In the 9th century, monks fleeing iconoclasm (Veneration of images) or arriving as refugees from areas conquered by Islam swelled the number of those already living on Athos as hermits.
Anchoritic eremitism, the earliest of the four forms of monasticism practiced in Athos (Monasticism), was put by an imperial edict of 872 under the authority of a Protos. Athanasius the Athonite established the…