Posts in category: Το νόημα του ονοματος – Αφηγήσεις Αγ. Παυλος Κεφ.2

When the Xeropotamos Monastery was flourishing, Pavlos, led by a 'quest for silence', withdrew to the present location of the Monastery at the foot of Mt Athos. A circle of students quickly grew around him. The new monastery he founded was dedicated to the Virgin Mary (Theotokos). After his death, at the end of the 10th century, the establishment was known as Xeropotamos, or Monastery of the Virgin Mary of Master Pavlos. It seems that it was built on the middle rock, out of the three, at the top of which today stands the chapel of St Georgios, a 16th-century construction.

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.

In the 15th century, the Serbian despot Georgios Brankovic became one of the most important donors of the monastery. In 1447, he funded the construction of the new cathedral in a position somewhat southern to the original church built by St Pavlos in the 10th century. He dedicated it to his patron saint, St Georgios. Since then, the Monastery commemorates St Georgios along with the Virgin Mary, to whom it was originally dedicated. Many of the relics that are kept today in the Monastery were gifts of various Serbian rulers and nobles.

In the 14th century, the Monastery was already deserted. Although it is not known how long it had been abandoned, the memory of its founding by St Pavlos of Xeropotamos was kept alive. It was restored in 1383/4 by two Serbian monks: Gerasimos from Chilandar (whose lay name was Nicholas Radonia) and Arsenios (the former Antony Bagash). Both were born of Serbian noble families; in fact, Gerasimos was a member of the prominent Brankovic family, who were later to become local rulers. The two monks bought the deserted cell of St Pavlos from the Xeropotamos Monastery, to which it had reverted after its abandonment. We know almost nothing about the works they undertook, but they seem to have confined their efforts to the area of the central rock. However, it is certain that a new life began for the then-small monastery.