Monthly Archives: Μάιος 2020

At the beginning of the 19th century, St Nikodemos Hagiorites is reported to have seen a very old imperial seal of the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes (1068-1071), 'I saw a damaged sigillion by the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes, on which the seal had representations of the king Romanos and the queen Eudokia with two children protected from above by Jesus Christ. On the back of the seal, there was a cross and some capital letters. According to what I was able to read from this very worn sigillion, it was validating the possession of lands that were dedicated centuries ago.' It was last seen and described in 1867 by Victor Langlois. In 1903, Smyrnakis writes that the sigillion had become lost, but its seal remained. However, he describes a different seal, as Kriton Chrysochoidis recently observed, the same as the one visitors can see today in a display case in the library: On the front, Christ is depicted standing between Romanos and Evdokia and crowning them; the three sons of Eudokia from the previous emperor Constantine I – Constantine, Michael (who later became Emperor), and Andronikos – are depicted on the reverse. Unfortunately, the content of the sigillion has not been preserved.

For the entirety of the medieval period until the end of the 15th century, the archives of the Karakallos Monastery have only seven documents. It is by far the smallest collection in a Monastery on Athos. The oldest document is only from 1294, and three more documents are preserved for the period 1568 to 1600. Professor Cyril Pavlikianov who studied them notes that fortunately there are some surviving interesting Greek, Slavic and Western references of the 18th and 19th centuries to compensate for the lost content of the archives of Karakallos.

Various speculations have occasionally been made about the origin of the Monastery's name. One connects it to the Roman Emperor Caracalla (188-207), perhaps through some unknown ruin or toponym. In fact, a popular legend, which misled the painter of the cemetery chapel, presents him as the Monastery's founder, adding an ironic hint to the anachronism, since Caracalla was a well-known persecutor of the Christians. Another suggestion that the owner was called Karakalos is made by the Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos, who had lived on Athos in the 14th century, in his work The Life of St Germanos Maroulis. This name, however, does not occur earlier than the end of the 13th century, when it is known to be the name of the bishop of Nicomedia (1289-1309). Smyrnakis mentions in 1903 that Nikolaos from the village of Karakalla and the family of Karakalla, who was converted to Christianity during the years of Athanasios of Athos, is celebrated as the founder of the Monastery. However, Delouis points out that such a person is not known from any historical source.

The earliest mention of the Monastery is in a document of 1018/9 concerning the resolution of a border dispute between the three neighbouring monasteries of Great Lavra, Amalfinon and Karakallos. A few years later, however, in 1045, the Karakallos Monastery is curiously absent from the list of monasteries whose representatives signed the second charter of Mt Athos, which was prepared during the reign of the Emperor Constantine III Monomachus. This absence, which is difficult to interpret, is added to the question that we already have about the exact time and conditions of the Monastery's founding, as well as about the identity of its founder or founders. As for the meaning of the name, there are only legends and speculations. As Olivier Delouis notes, throughout the medieval period the Monastery is referred to as Karakàlou, Karakàllou, Karakàlous, Karàkala or Karakalà. So, the founder may have been named Karàkalos, or Karàkallos, or Karakàlas, or Karakalàs, or someone with a completely different name.

We know that the Monastery was founded around the year 1000, and from the start was dedicated to the apostles Peter and Paul. However, despite the undeniable fact that it has existed for more than a thousand years as a beehive of spiritual life, exercise, active study, writing and creativity, with radiation and influence, details of its path through time are fewer than we would expect and wish, and several aspects of its history are obscured. The main reason for these gaps is the loss, at unknown times, of most of the Monastery's archives, with only a small amount of documents preserved. To the historian who has a love of narratives, the one-thousand-year-old Karakallos Monastery stands and will forever stand as humble and taciturn.