Rossikon

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The Rossikon, seen from the sea
Panteleimon Monastery

The Monastery of St. Pantaleon ( Greek Άγιος Παντελεήμων , Aghios Panteleimon, better known as Ρωσσικόν , Rossikon ) is a Russian Orthodox monastery in Athos , Greece .

history

The monastery of St. Pantaleon was founded in the 10th century by a monk named Leontios. From 1169 it was settled by Russian monks and recognized as an independent monastery. During the Mongol rule in Russia , most of the monks were Greeks or Serbs . In the course of its history, the Rossikon has been destroyed by major fires several times, including in 1307 when it was attacked by the " Catalan Company ". The monastery almost went under under the Ottoman rule in Greece. In 1730 only two Russian and two Bulgarian monks lived there.

The new monastery

When the Russian admiral Fyodor Ushakov crossed the eastern Mediterranean with his frigate from 1776 to 1779 after the Russian-Ottoman War (5th Russian Turkish War), which was victorious for Russia in 1774 , he placed the monastery under his protection. Tsarina Catherine II approved this step by taking the Rossikon under her patronage. The monks, who had left the old monastery in the mountains (called Palaiomonastir or Staryj Russik ) in 1765, moved to the new monastery, which was built directly on the seashore. Especially in the first two decades of the 19th century it was expanded again and again. The Katholikon , the main church of the new monastery, was built from 1812 to 1821 . In terms of its size and number of monks, the Rossikon became the largest of the monasteries on the holy Mount Athos in the 19th century. Before the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877/1878, the Rossikon played a key role in the - not realized - Russian plans to establish Russian and Bulgarian colonies on Mount Athos, which at that time (and until the First Balkan War in 1912) belonged to the Ottoman Empire .

The "Athos dispute"

From 1907 to the First World War , the Rossikon was a main venue in the " Athos dispute ". At the heart of this theological-dogmatic debate was the question of whether Christ is present in the Jesus prayer ( Iisusova molitva ) and the devout invocation of the name of Jesus ( Imjaslavie ) in the same way as in the Eucharist . Most of the monks of Rossikon refused to obey the instructions of the Holy Synod . They insisted that they had experienced a real presence of Christ in the Jesus prayer , and objected to the fact that, based on dogma - from their point of view - a spiritual experience should be underestimated. As a result, a gunboat of the Imperial Russian Navy was sent to the monastery, which took hundreds of " heretical " monks with them.

The Rossikon in the 20th and 21st centuries

In 1903 there were 1,446 monks in the Rossikon, including Siluan of Athos ; in 1913 there were more than 2,000. The persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union reduced the number of monks in Rossikon to a small fraction of their former strength. In addition, during the Greek military dictatorship (1967–1974), the state governors of Athos temporarily refused entry permits for Russian monks to enter the Rossikon. A major fire devastated a large part of the monastery on 23/24. October 1968. In 1973 the Rossikon had only 20 monks. The monastic community has been growing again since the collapse of the Soviet Union . As the first Russian head of state, Vladimir Putin visited the monastery on September 9, 2005.

Library, relics, equipment

The Rossikon has an extensive library with valuable manuscripts, including the Codex Athos Panteleimon , a Greek uncial manuscript of the New Testament from the 10th century, and important medieval manuscripts written in Church Slavonic .

The Rossikon preserves a wide variety of relics that drew and drew pilgrims, such as the head of the patron saint of the monastery, St. Pantaleon , one of the most popular saints in Russia.

The monastery bells date from the 19th century and are considered to be the largest in Greece.

literature

  • Pierre Filatoff: Histoire du monastère russe de Saint-Pantéléimon du Mont-Athos . Diss., Université de Paris / Sorbonne, Paris 1977.
  • Andreas E. Müller : Mount Athos. History of a monastic republic . CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-50851-0 , pp. 109-111.
  • Stylianos Pelekanidēs: The treasures of Mount Athos. Miniatures, headpieces, initial letters, illuminated manuscripts . Vol. 2: The monasteries of Iveron, St. Panteleimon, Esphigmenou, and Chilandari . Published by the Patriarchal Institute for Patristic Studies. Ekdotike Athenon, Athens 1975.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ a b Andreas E. Müller: Mount Athos. History of a monastic republic . CH Beck, Munich 2005, p. 109.
  2. ↑ a b Irenäus Doens: Hagion Oros (1968–1969). The holy mountain between Athens, Moscow, Istanbul and Geneva . In: Österreichische Osthefte. Journal for Central, East and Southeast European Research , ISSN  0029-9375 , vol. 11 (1969), issue 6, p. 348.
  3. ^ Stylianos Pelekanidēs: The treasures of Mount Athos . Vol. 2: The monasteries of Iveron, St. Panteleimon, Esphigmenou, and Chilandari . Ekdotike Athenon, Athens 1975, p. 144.
  4. ^ Felix Bamberg: History of the oriental affair in the period of the Paris and Berlin peace . Grote, Berlin 1892, p. 435.
  5. ↑ Placide de Meester: Voyage de deux Bénédictins aux monastères du Mont-Athos . Brouwer, Paris 1908, p. 92.
  6. ↑ Methodius Völkel: The gift of the Mother of God. A pilgrimage to Mount Athos. In: Beuron Forum. Cultural, monastic and liturgical life in the Archabbey of St. Martin , year 2015, pp. 223–233, here p. 232.
  7. ^ Art. Athos, Mount . In: Paul D. Steeves (ed.): The modern encyclopedia of religions in Russia and the Soviet Union , Vol. 3: Apocrypha – Basilians . Academic International Press, Gulf Breeze 1991, pp. 129-138, here p. 136.
  8. ^ A b Friedrich-Wilhelm Fernau: Between Constantinople and Moscow. Orthodox church policy in the Middle East 1967–1975 (= writings of the German Orient Institute ). Leske and Budrich, Opladen 1976, ISBN 3-8100-0178-3 , p. 117.
  9. ↑ Antonios Aimilios Tachiaos: The Slavonic manuscripts of Saint Panteleimon monastery (St. Panteleimon Monastery) on Mount Athos . Hellenic Association for Slavic Studies, Thessaloniki 1981.

Web links

Commons : Rossikon  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 40 ° 14 ′ 13.3 ″  N , 24 ° 12 ′ 7.2 ″  E