Who, however, was the great ascetic St Pavlos of Xeropotamos, the monk who initially founded the Monastery? Little is known about him because, unfortunately, his biography was written well after his time, and is considered to be largely fictional. According to the Monastery tradition, he had been well educated, and held a high office in the imperial court, which seems to be confirmed by his iconographic depiction as a eunuch. He left Konstantinople secretly as a beggar and came to Athos, probably in the second half of the 10th century. He initially founded the Xeropotamos Monastery near the port of Dafni, probably one of the oldest cenobitic monasteries of Mt Athos, in the time of St Athanasios the Athonite.
