The Holy Monastery of St Pavlos was founded, according to the Athonite tradition, by Pavlos (whose lay name was Prokopios), the son of the Emperor Michael III Rangkave (842-867). Surviving sources in the archives, however, confirm that the Monastery was founded by the well-known Athonite ascetic, the Great Pavlos of Xeropotamos, during the second half of the 10th century. This monk, after the foundation of the Xeropotamos Monastery, left for the then-deserted area in the north of the peninsula, where he founded a small monastery in the name of the Virgin Mary, and became its first Abbot. Because of the reputation of the founder, the Monastery acquired influence in the Athonite community: In 1045, its Abbott – who was the eighth Abbot in a series of 32 – wrote the Typiko (Book of Rules) of the Emperor Konstantine IX Monomaxos.
The only information known from this first phase of the history of the Monastery are its attempts to organize its productive lands, and in particular its northern border (in the area of the present-day skete of St Anna), where the Monastery of the Parliamentarians once stood. Until the beginning of the 12th century, the Monastery of St Pavlos was a relatively small monastic unit, without known properties outside the Athonite peninsula.
