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Art in Chilandar Monastery
Chilandar under Turkish occupation |
ATHOS
"The Garden of the Most Holy Mother of God"
The peninsula of Athos stretches 45 kilometres South East into the Aegean Sea, and is only 5 kilometers wide. It is the most easterly of the three fingers of Chalcidice linked to it by an isthmus two kilometers across known as Prevlaka. T'here has been no lay settlement for over than a thousand years, and no woman may set foot on its soil. The monks call the Holy Mountain "the garden of the Most Holy Mother of God" in accordance with the ancient Holy tradition which says: After the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Most Holy Mother of God Virgin Mary set out for Cyprus to visit the resurrected Lazarus. At that time Lazarus was the bishop on Cyprus. A miraculous storm carried her ship in the opposite direction to Holy Athos, which was then the site of a pagan shrine to Apollo. At the place where the Iviron monastery was later built, the Virgin Mary received divine instructions to preach the Gospels to Athos: "This place shall be your garden, and a haven of salvation for those who desire to be saved".
The monasticism on the Holy Mountain was ultimately the outcome of missionary work by the Virgin Mary herself, it is under her sovereign protection, and the veneration of the Most Holy Theotokos is the main coult on this Holy Mountain. |
