Posts in category: Η Ιστορια της Μονής 1 – Καρακάλλου

From the third decade of the 20th century with its catastrophic economic depression, followed by the suffering of the Second World War years, a general crisis situation existed on Mt Athos during the first postwar decades. These conditions created intense phenomena of decline, which ended only in the last decades of the 20th century. With systematic efforts, the fraternity of Karakallou Monastery, under the leadership of the Elder Archimandrite Filotheos, renovated, rebuilt, and reconciled itself with the hesychastic spirit which it had had 700 years earlier.

A few years later, the brotherhood of the Monastery added a new-martyr to its ranks. The Great Martyr Gideon, who had been forced to change his religion at a young age. Repenting this decision, he was tonsured as a monk at the Monastery, which he left to voluntarily seek martyrdom on 30 December 1818 in Turnavo, Thessaly. The residents of Turnavo sent a part of his holy relics to the Monastery. The brotherhood of the Monastery also includes the Holy Gervasios blessed by Christ the Saviour, who for years lived as a ragged ascetic around the Monastery, where he died peacefully in 1820. As a result of the outbreak of the Greek Revolution in 1821 and the unsuccessful uprising in Macedonia, the Monastery, along with all the monasteries on the peninsula, were negatively affected during the following years. Ottoman troops set up their base camps in the monasteries, which were forced to provide for their needs. a heavy, special tax was levied collectively on the monasteries, and the regular taxes were doubled. The dependencies in Chalkidiki sustained great damage, the debt increased enormously, and a large number of monks abandoned Mt Athos. Between 1823-1830, less than 1,000 monks still remained on the peninsula. For a period of five years, Karakallou suffered losses to its dependencies in Chalkidiki and in Strymona, experienced a crisis, and no structural work was undertaken at the Monastery. After 1830, communication with the dependencies was re-established, the economic situation gradually improved, and the number of monks began to increase. Around 1835, it is possible that the Monastery faced an economic crisis because of its debts, as a result of which they were forced to pawn vestments and artefacts, while in 1836, the British traveller R. Curzon removed at least 16 valuable manuscripts from the library.
It is known that in 1854, Damaskinos, the Abbot of Katakallou, gave a beautiful horse to the military leader Tsami Karataso, an action which caused him to lose his position and to expelled from the Monastery. Moreover, during the second half of the previous century, the Monastery began to have major problems with its property rights: In 1863, the Romanian government confiscated all the dependencies of the eastern Greeks in Moldovlachia, among them being the dependencies of Karakallou, and populated the Monastery with many Russian monks for the purpose of taking control of it. Relevant information indicates that the foreign monks first lived in the dependencies, which they planned to transform into cenobitic sketes, and from there to later enter inside the Monastery itself. In the end, their goals were not achieved: After the liberation and incorporation of Mt Athos into the Greek nation, the Karakallou does not appear to have fallen into decline. However, the economic problems worsened when, after 1922, the holdings of the Athonite monasteries in Macedonia and the islands of the North Aegean were expropriated and given to the refugees from Asia Minor.

During the 16th century, the gradual improvement of the conditions at the Monastery are due to – apart from the general events which can be observed throughout the peninsula – and the attempts undertaken to maintain them, can be attributed to the events described below.
In 1592, the Proto Vessarios and the Holy Synod finally resolved the disputes which had been ongoing since the 13th century between the Karakallou Monastery and the Great Lavras Monastery relating to their boundaries in the area of the old Amalfinon Monastery. The same resolution was reaffirmed by Patriarch Ioannikios II in a decree in 1762.
Despite its losses after the Ottoman conquest, the Monastery continued to maintain ownership of the properties of its Byzantine dependencies. In fact, during the years of Ottoman occupation, new dependencies appear among the Monastery’s holdings, i.e. in Chalkidiki (Ierissos, Kassandra, Ormylia, Siderokausia), in Strymona (present-day New Kerdilia, and others), in the North Aegean (Thasos, Limnos and St Eustratios), in Krete, in Asia Minor, and in Vessarabia (an ancient country now part of Moldavia and the Ukraine).
The Monastery gradually continued to rise in the 16th century and in those which followed. Initiatives for the renovation and reconstruction of the building complex of the Monastery were undertaken, in particular with the generous sponsorship of the leaders of Moldavia after a legendary fire in 1530, which gift/tragedy is not recorded in any reliable source. The Vlachian leader Ioannis Petros Rares successfully recovered a number of dependencies belonging to the Monastery by purchasing them from the Ottomans in 1570, and in the end he was tonsured as a monk. The solid economic base which the Monastery had at that time was complemented by the presence of proactive monks, who funded and directed the projects themselves.
In the next century, Artchil, the King of Iberia (an ancient Northern Caucausian kingdom, in the area of present-day Georgia), and his brother Georgios Bachtag (1674), along with the monk Ioasaf and other Athonite fathers, safeguarded the welfare of the Monastery, which reached its zenith at that time with – according to some statements – several hundred (up to 500) monks residing there.
At the end of the 18th century, a period of operational irregularity due to poor management by the Sacristan Prior Gerasimos (1788) occurred, but it was short-lived and not repeated. In the years preceding the 1821 Greek Revolution for Independence, a major event which gradually changed the spiritual character of the Monastery took place: The return to a cenobitic system, which had already been reinstituted in six other Athonite monasteries. In July 1813, the Great Synod announced the decision of the Karakallou Monastery to become cenobitic in an official letter, with the hieromonk Nektarios from the Analypseos cell of the Chilandarinos Monastery appointed as Abbot. The transition to the cenobitic system was confirmed by the publication of a decree by the Patriarch Kyrillos VI the same year.

In 1424, Mt Athos finally fell under Ottoman control. At first the new political authority recognized the existing ownership rights and the associated benefits of the monasteries. However, they soon levied taxes not only on the monasteries on Mt Athos, but also on the Athonite dependencies located elsewhere, many of which were lost as a result, while the arbitrary behaviour of tax officials and other state employees was a common problem. Consequently, the economic condition of the monasteries greatly worsened, the number of monks decreased, and in general the functional bonds between the Athonite monasteries and the world outside it were greatly weakened. The amount of tax due from the Karakallou Monastery is not known precisely, i.e. what percentage of the total taxes levied on the Mt Athos monasteries had been apportioned to it, but based on an Ottoman inventory record of 1520, it was probably one of the few surviving monasteries on the peninsula at that time. If they had succeeded, as all the monasteries had sought to do, in not being taxed based on a system of tithes on agricultural production and other related analogous taxes, but instead based on the more beneficial system of a flat tax rate, that would have meant that the amount of tax would have remained stable for a long time and would have reduced the chance of arbitrarily imposed taxes.
There are few reports about the Monastery during the first decades after the Ottoman conquest. In 1444, the Monastery was visited by the Italian traveller Kyriakos Agonitis, who writes that he met the Prior David and poor Serbian monks there who, even though they spoke a foreign language, served the Greek Orthodox church. This report about the presence of Serbian monks at the Monastery in the first half of the 15th century is unique. Moreover, it is noteworthy because until that time, the Monastery clearly had a Greek character, with evidence of the last known Prior, Gregorios, having signed his name in Greek in 1423. The next known testimony about the Monastery dates to 1486/87, and comes from a document of the Proto Kosmas which delineates the border between the Filotheos and Karakallou monasteries, an event at which the Prior Iakobos of Karakallou Monastery was present. A copy of this document from the 17th or 18th century survives, but we do not know whether the original was written in Greek or in Slavic.
The next known archived testimonies referring to representatives of the Monastery are the signatures of the Prior Stefanos in 1503 on a document issued by the Proto, and that of the Prior Maximos in 1504/05 on a document by the Proto Moyseos. Both signatures were in Slavic. These seem to be the last pieces of evidence of their kind: There are numerous pieces of evidences from 1518 which bear signatures of the representatives of the Monastery, and all are in Greek. Thus, there may be a basis for the hypothesis that for a short period of time, shortly before the middle of the 15th century and until the beginning of the 16th, the Monastery was inhabited by non-Greek-speaking monks, as was the case in other Athonite monasteries as well.
In the 16th century, Karakallou was organized according to the idiorhythmic system of monastic life. The office of Abbot was not discontinued, but instead took on a mainly ritual character, being awarded to those who performed outstanding services to the Monastery (e.g. successfully carrying out something requested, sound management of a dependency, etc.). The position was valid for a short term, and could be awarded to the same person more than once. After 1518, there are no documents with signatures of the Abbot of the Monastery, but instead representatives of it, e.g. a judge, sacristan, prior, or simple hieromonks and elders.
In the 1394 Mt Athos Typikon (Book of rules) of Manuel Palaiologos, which was published in 1498 in order to regulate procedural issues relating to the general operation of the Monastery, also documents the situation on the peninsula at the end of the 15th century: The Karakallou Monastery held the seventh position, after Great Lavra, Vatopedio, Iviron, Chilandarios and Zeropotamos. From the same source, we learn that the Monastery was even required to give seven measures of wine and seven litres of olive oil to the Proto every year.
From the end of the 15th century and during the 16th, the Monastery seems to have maintained relationships with important personages of the era. In 1492, the leader Iakobos Malaspinas bought a precious artefact in Konstantinople, a 1290 calligraphic book with the four gospels, and repatriated it to the Monastery. In 1546, the Monastery was in communication with the Metropolite Makarios of Thessaloniki, who took up residence at the Vatopedio Monastery – where he lived as the monk Michael – shortly prior to 1527, after his resignation from the throne. During his time at the Monastery, he donated a large number of important manuscripts to the library, among which two manuscripts of the Παρακλητική (hymns for the Vespers) stand out, and are still considered to be significant today. At the same time, one of the most important ascetics of the 16th century, St Dionysios of Olympus, practised for some time at the border of the Monastery. According to information in his Life, he moved to a skete of the Monastery around 1520, constructed cells and the church of the Holy Trinity there, and took part in ascetic struggles. After his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, he returned to his skete, where he built the church of the Holy Fathers, before being elected as Abbot in the Filotheos Monastery.

The peak of the Monastery’s development in the 14th century is reflected equally by the significant rise in the number and the quality of its properties both within and outside the peninsula, but also in the frequent and active participation of the monks in Athonite events. The economic and demographic flourishing of the Monastery during this period is related to the presence there at that time of brilliant, inspirational men. The special bond of the Monastery with the Patriarch St Athanasios I, the precursor of the hesychastic movement, a strict ascetic, and a fierce supporter of strict adherence to the monastic canons, appears to have transformed the spiritual climate of the Monastery, and during the following years attracted monks who brought the same spirit with them. The relationship he developed with the Monastery can be traced to the time of his second and brief stay at the monastery in 1278, which coincided with the exile of the Athonites by Michael VIII and Ioannis Bekko due to their refusal to accept the unification of the eastern and western churches after the Council of Lyon. In the Life of Athanasios, his place of residence is not mentioned; however, the preamble of the 1294 chrysobull of Andronikos II Palaiologos refers to the multiple beneficial interventions of the Patriarch towards the Emperor relating to the publication of decrees in favour of the Karakallou Monastery, where he had formerly lived. The testimony of the documents must be accurate, since the Emperor maintained a close, friendly relationship with Athanasios and was personally knowledgeable about his former monastic life.
Moreover, prior to 1310, the monk Iakinthos Kerameas lived at the Monastery. He was a descendant of the aristocratic Kerameos family of Thessaloniki and a relative of St Germanos Maroulis, although the exact degree of relationship is not known. Iakinthos, a monk for about 23 years (1310-1333), greatly influenced the fortunes of the Monastery in his time there.
Likewise, the Life of St Germanos of Thessaloniki, written by the former Athonite Patriarch Filotheos Kokkinos, is particularly revealing about his relationships with the great ascetics of the era, and also for the hesychastic environment of the Monastery. The saint himself, along with members of his family, for example his brother Andronikos Maroulis and the latter’s son Ioannis, are linked with the Monastery: Andronikos was tonsured as a monk, while Ioannis was healed by his saintly uncle when he was gravely ill in the Monastery. The hieromonk Pezos, a fellow ascetic of Germanos, was a brother at the Monastery, while the Patriarch Filotheos maintained a close relationship with Iakinythos.
It is also very likely that Malachias, the former Metropolite of Thessaloniki, died at the Monastery in 1324. Malachias was a student of Patriarch Athanasios and the spiritual father of Germanos; before he became the Metropolite of Thessaloniki, he served as Prior at Great Lavra Monastery. Furthermore, St Gregorios Palamas resided in the Karakallou skete Glossias for two years (1322-1324), along with the ascetic Gregorios Drimu. Their departure is likely connected to the frequent pirate raids at the Monastery.
Finally, among the educated monks who resided at the Monastery during this period and advanced the art of calligraphy is the monk Isaak, the sponsor and scribe of a precious Book of the Gospels, which was presented to the Monastery in 1290.
After the raids of the Latin pirates in 1204, it is likely that the Monastery was reduced to ruins for a second time after raids by Katalanian pirates (1306-1308). Regardless of whether or not the new period of abandonment was a historical event, there are many accounts of pirate raids on Mt Athos by Latin and Turkish pirates during the 14th century. In a written document, the Proto Isaac reports on the terrible condition of the Monastery after the catastrophic raids of the pirates and the Latin army during all of the 13th century, while, as previously mentioned, in 1324 Gregorios Palamas abandoned the skete Glossias where he practiced because of the fear of pirates, and that skete was destroyed just prior to 1353 by Turkish pirates.

With the IVth Crusade in 1204 and the following Frankish rule, the Monastery Karakallou suffered along with the rest of Mt Athos. Latin pirates roamed the Athos peninsula undisturbed, looting and destroying monasteries, including the Karakallou, where the Prior and the members of the brotherhood were held as prisoners. In the Life of St Sabbas – the Archbishop of Serbia and co-founder of the Chilandarios Monastery – written by Dometianos and Theodosios, states that in 1204, the Great Lavra Monastery offered to pay the ransom for the release of the monks on the condition that the Karakallou Monastery and all its dependences would become the property of the Great Lavra. However, St Sabbas personally paid the ransom, thereby securing the freedom of the prisoners and also avoiding any debt to the Great Lavra Monastery, as well as earning eternal gratitude for himself and his family. Although the Lives is considered a secure and trusted source, it is perhaps the only reference to one Athonite monastery being subject to another, i.e., the event is not confirmed by any other source.
With the end of Roman rule and the recovery of Macedonia by the Byzantines, the Monastery started to flourish and to acquire new properties. From 1262, the names of the priors are once again mentioned in the sources: In 1262, the monk Neofytos was the Prior, and in 1287, it was the hieromonk and advisor Kosmas.
During the last decades of the 13th century, during the time of Michael VIII Palaiologos, and in particular during that of his successor Andrononikos II, the Monastery experienced significant development, due in large part to the relationship of the Monastery with the Patriarch of Konstantinople, St Athanasios I (1289-1293, 1303-1309). With his active intervention during the latter years of his administration, the rights of the Monastery regarding both its old dependencies and those more recently acquired were firmly established.
At that time (1287), the Monastery was involved in a dispute – a long-term one, as it proved to be, since it was not completely settled until the end of the 16th century – about border differences with the Great Lavra Monastery, and the designation of boundaries in the area of the Amalfinon Monastery, which at that time was attached to the former. On the land of the Amalfinon Monastery which bordered on that of Karakallou, the skete Probatas had developed. Perhaps this conflict caused the publication of the chrysobull by Andronikos II, the first written record delineating the property of the Monastery, including its dependencies and its holdings both within and outside Mt Athos.

As previously noted, the first mention of the Monastery in sources dates to 1018/19, the year when the Proto Nikiforos and the Synod of Karyes unsuccessfully tried to solve the border disputes among the three neighbouring monasteries Great Lavras, Amalfinon, and Karakallou. From that document, it is easy for someone to conclude that the Monastery was already operating at that time and that it claimed a significant area surrounding it, land which bordered with that of the Monastery Amalfinon. Perhaps it had been founded a little earlier, at the end of the 10th century or the beginning of the 11th, and was dedicated from the start to the highest-ranked apostles Peter and Paul, and that the dedication to the other holy apostles is witnessed for the first time in a signature of the Prior of the Monastery Theodoulos in 1076.
The next mention of the Monastery in sources is about 50 years later, during the time of the Emperor Romanou IV Diogeni (1068-1071). St Nikodimos the Athonite verifies that in his time – the last decades of the 18th century – fragments of imperial records existed that awarded ownership of dependencies in different areas to the Monastery. In fact, the seal of the Emperor Romanou Diogeni was still attached to the fragment seen by Nikodimos. However, shortly before the middle of the next century, only the imperial seal from the document seen by Nikodimos had survived, as is stated in the 1842 brief history written by the hieromonk Neofutos. This imperial seal is still preserved in the Monastery today. The testimony of Nikodimos must be accurate, which means that between 1068-1071, the Monastery had an unspecified number of important dependencies in different areas, and that it was recognized among the other known monasteries to the extent that it warranted the publication of an imperial document.
From that time until the end of the 13th century, there is little information about the Monastery, and that is limited to the names of Priors and representatives of the Monastery who signed various documents, and to references of events in hagiological sources. However, these references do serve to document the unbroken and continuous life of the Monastery, a fact which is not consistent with the widespread but rather unsubstantiated information about its periodic abandonment.

The Karakallos Monastery is included among those monasteries which were founded during the first 50 years after the appearance of organized, cenobitic life on the Athos peninsula, which chronologically coincides with the presence there of St Athanasios the Athonite and the founding of the Great Lavras Monastery.
The source of the name of the Monastery remains uncertain, a fact which led to the creation of a variety of myths and legends. In 1677, the British traveler J. Covel records the legend that the founder of the Monastery was the Roman Emperor of the 3rd century Antonios Karakallas. This view was very quickly adopted by both Ioannis Komemnos in his 1698 work Προσκυνηματάριό (The Pilgrim’s Book), and in the middle of the next century by Barski (1744). In general, it appears that the legend of the Roman Emperor as founder circulated quite widely in the Monastery during the 18th century, to the degree that it was recorded by the artist of the cemetery church of All Saints (1768), where the surviving inscription Vas. Karakallas in a partially-destroyed fresco can still be read today. An alternate version to this legend names Nikolaos Karak(a)la as founder, said to have come from the small town in Vlachia called Caracal, which is claimed to have been founded by the same Emperor Karakallas.
Other versions connect the name of the Monastery with the surname of the well-known 17th century Peloponnesian family Karakallou or Karak(al)a from Dimitsana, from which family many bishops came, including Kyrilllos V Karakallos (1748-1751, 1752-1757) of Konstantinople. However, this explanation is also doubtful. Likewise, the name of the Monastery is not related to the family with the similar Italian surname, but to the Greek aristocratic family of Caraccioli. This version had likely already been circulated in the West by the beginning of the 18th century, since it is recorded by the Jesuit monk Branconnier, who visited Mt Athos in 1706. In the 19th century, the Italian Francois Caracciolo, probably a descendant of the similarly-named family, theorized that the name of the Monastery is related to his family, even carrying out thorough investigations within the Monastery itself, none of which yielded evidence to support his claim.
In an earlier reference to its origins in 1018, the Monastery is called Karakalou or Karkalous, while its name appears as the Monastery Karakalou in subsequent references until 1142; yet in the same year, a reference to the Monastery as Karakala has been found. Until the 14th century, it is referred to in both ways, although more prominence and weight was given to the form Karakalou during that period. It also seems unlikely that the name of the Monastery might have a Turkish origin (kara + koules, ‘stone castle’), is correct, since in the era of its founding, the Seljuk Turks had not yet appeared on the historic stage.
The origin of the name most likely is connected with some aspect of the identity of its founder. This possibility was suggested in the 14th century by Filotheos Kokkinos in the Life of St Germanos Marouli. However, neither the name Karakal(l)os nor Karakal(l)as are recorded during the middle Byzantine years, and the surname Karakalos becomes known only at the end of the 13th century, when it refers to the Metropolite Nikomideias Karakalo (1289-1309), whose name has not been passed down.