Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Mount Athos

Episode Date: March 31, 2021

In northern Greece, lying off the larger Chalkidiki peninsula is a place that is unique on planet Earth. It only has a population of about 2,400 people scattered across 20 settlements and some random people living by themselves. What makes this area unique is that all 2,400 of its citizens are monks and all are men….and women are not allowed to even enter. Learn more about the Monastic Republic of Mount Athos on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In northern Greece, lying off the larger Chalkediki Peninsula is a place that's unique on earth. It only has a population of about 2,400 people scattered across 20 settlements and some random people living by themselves. What makes this area unique is that all 2,400 of its citizens are monks and men, and women are not allowed to enter. Learn more about the Monastic Republic of Mount Athos on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now.

Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by the Travel Photography Academy. In 2007, I sold my home to travel around the world. I bought an expensive camera that I didn't know how to use and took a bunch of terrible photos. Several years, 100 countries, and tens of thousands of photos later, I'd improved my photography to the point where I was winning national awards being named Travel Photographer of the Year three times in North America. I created the Travel Photography Academy,

so you don't have to spend the many years that I did to improve your photography. Even though we can't easily travel right now, You can still work on improving your photography at home and in your own community. Just go to travel photography academy.com or click on the link in the show notes to start improving your photography today. As you might expect for most places in Greece, there's a lot of history around Mount Athos. The name Athos itself comes from Greek mythology. Athos was the name of one of the giants which challenged the Greek gods on Mount Olympus. The peninsula has a mention in the Iliad by Homer.

Herodotus mentions that the entire Persian fleet, was destroyed off its coast in the year 492 BC, sinking 300 ships and killing 20,000 men. The Persian king, Xerxes I tried to cut a canal across the peninsula to let his ship through to avoid the rough seas off the peninsula's tip. After the death of Alexander the Great, the great Greek architect Dinocratis had toyed with the idea of carving the entire mountain into a statue of Alexander in a reclined position. But none of these things from the ancient world are what Mount Athos is best known for. Mount Athos is known for being home to Orthodox Christian monasteries.

The Christian legend surrounding Mount Athos is that the Virgin Mary was traveling from what is today Jaffa Israel to Cyprus with St. John. They were blown off course and landed on the shore of Mount Athos. She thought it was so beautiful that she asked God to make it her own garden. From that moment, the peninsula was dedicated to Mary, and as such, it was out of bounds to all other women. When Christians actually arrived on the peninsula is unknown, but it was probably around the third or fourth century when there were still pagans living in the area. The Islamic conquest of Egypt in the 7th century closed many of the Orthodox monasteries there, and monks from those monasteries found a new home on Mount Athos. The number of monasteries on the peninsula grew over time, and in the 9th century, a decree by the Byzantine Emperor Basil I, declared that it was a place of monks and that no lay people were allowed. Emperor Leo the 6th referred to Athos as, quote,

The ancient seat of the Council of Elders. The political rulers changed over the centuries, but the peninsula remained monastic. When it was controlled by Catholic rulers in the 13th century after the Fourth Crusade, there was a brief period where there was a Catholic Benedictine monastery, but that didn't last very long. The one event during the Middle Ages, which is of note, is called the Catalan Vengeance.

The area was raided by mercenaries from Catalonia in the 14th century. As such, anyone from Catalonia was banned from stepping foot on Mount Athos until the year 2005, a period of almost 700 years. With the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic Ottoman Empire eventually took control of the region. For the most part, the monasteries were left alone, and some sultans even financially supported them. The monks in turn recognized Ottoman rule. However, by the 17th and 18th centuries, relations soured with the Ottomans. taxes were raised on the monks and property was seized. This caused a shift in the way the monasteries operated.

They shifted from cenobitic monasticism, which is communal ownership of everything, to idiotrhythmic monasticism, which is basically living like a hermit. This was an economic measure to ensure the survival of the monastic way of life on Mount Athos. The peninsula saw a resurgence in the 19th century with support from the Russian royal family.

In fact, the number of monks grew to a peak of almost seven thousand. In 1912, the Ottomans were pushed out by the Greek Navy, and Mount Athos became part of Greece. Mount Athos mostly avoided the turmoil the 20th century. Hitler gave a personal guarantee of protection in World War II. During the Greek Civil War, which came after, the communists also left the peninsula alone. The Greek constitution gives special mention to Mount Athos. In Greek, it's known as Agion Oros, which simply means Holy Mountain. The official name is the Autonomous Monaster Republic of the Holy Mountain. Mount Athos is mostly exempt from control from the Greek government. They live by the monastic law which has ruled the region for centuries. The Greek parliament

ratified this self-rule decree, which was originally established by Byzantine emperors. There are currently 20 monasteries on the peninsula. 17 are Greek, one is Bulgarian, one is Serbian, one is Serbian, and one is Russian. Greek is the working language between the monasteries, but Bulgarian, Serbian, and Russian are spoken inside those monasteries. The entire The entire peninsula is run by what is known as the sacred community. It is representatives from each of the 20 monasteries. All 20 monasteries are run under the Cenobitic system, where all the property is communal, and each monastery is run by an abbot who is elected by the monks for life.

All non-Greek monks are granted Greek citizenship when entering their respective monasteries. The titular head of Mount Athos is the patriarch of Constantinople. Mount Athos is one of the few places in the world which still use. uses the Julian calendar. They use a revised Julian calendar, which is, as of now, on the same date as the Gregorian calendar, and here I'll refer you to my episode on that subject. Of course, the thing that gets the most attention about Mount Athos is its prohibition on women. The prohibition is extremely wide-ranging. They don't just prohibit women, but the females of any domesticated animal species as well, save for cats and chickens. And this has been the rule on Mount Athos

for over a thousand years. There have been occasions when women have been on Mount Athos. In the 14th century, the Serbian king, Stefan Uros, the fourth, sent his wife, Helen of Bulgaria, to avoid the plague. She was admitted, but she was not allowed to touch the ground. She spent three months in Mount Athos, moving around, carried by her staff. In the 1930s, Greek beauty contestant winner, Aliki Diploraku, dressed as a man and snuck in to Mount Athos,

and then later wrote about it in Time magazine. In the 1920s, French writer Maurice Chosy snuck in and also wrote about her experience. In 2008, a boat with Moldovan migrants unknowingly arrived on the shore of Mount Athos, and there were four women in the boat. They were notified of the rules and forgiven. As Greece is part of the European Union, and the EU has laws regarding gender equality, in 2003 they passed a resolution asking that the ban on women be overturned. The Greek government was prepared to give full independence to Mount Athos, and allow it to have similar diplomatic status as Vatican City.

It is possible to visit Mount Athos. You have to arrange your visit and get the equivalent of a visa to enter. There are only a limited number of visitors allowed, and of course, no women. The associate producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit. if you know someone you think would enjoy the show, please share it with them.

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