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Mount Athos or as it is officially called Holy Community of Mount Athos is an "Autonomous Monastic State" within Greece (perhaps unique in the world, with the exception of the cosmopolitan Lassa of Tibet), on the peninsula of Athos in Halkidiki in Macedonia, that is considered Orthodox monasticism.
It is one of the most important sections not only of the Balkans, but also of Europe and the Eastern Church because of its great national, historical, religious, secretarial and cultural value, as well as being an important center of conservation and maintenance of rich material and is rightly described as a "shelter" "museum" of unique treasure of Greek art and letters.
Mount Athos is also called "Perivoli of Panagia", a name derived from history: When the Virgin Mary traveled with John the Evangelist to visit Lazaros, a sea-craft forced their ship to tie in a safe harbor on the peninsula. That is why Virgin Mary was impressed by the rare beauty and asked her Son to donate it to her.
Mount Athos, a holy place that has been wrapped in centuries of myths and history, religion and art for a thousand years now, is now recognized as a valuable global cultural heritage by Unesco.
The imposing Athon has led people to associate him with myths because of his imposing volume, personalizing him to a giant who once unleashed a rock from Thrace and tossing him to Chalkidiki created Mount Athos and again when Poseidon, god of the sea flew a rock to Athon, killing him.
The peninsula of Athos is the most eastern and ruggest of the three individual parallel peninsulas of Kassandra or Pallini, Logos or Sithonia - central, and Athos or Mount Athos, which form the peninsula of Halkidiki.
This peninsula is covered by Mount Athos, which culminates in a marble pyramid of 2033m height, from which it has its name and ends in Cape Nymphaeus or Acrothouson.
There are no rivers and lakes in the area. It is connected to Halkidiki with a narrow isthmus, a low strip of land, 2 km long, a history of the Persian wars in 480 BC. Between the peninsula of Athos and Sithonia or Logos is formed the Sagittarian or bay of Mount Athos, while North East the bay of Ierissos. A few miles southeast of Athos is the largest gap of the Aegean, which from 80 m depth, reaches a steep peak of 1070 m. The first monks who settled in Mount Athos recorded at the beginning of the 9th century, originally lived in caves, while the monastic way of life radically changed with the arrival of St Efthymios of Minor Asia.
In 883, the monks of Mount Athos, in accordance with the imperial decree of the Vasileios A', secured their right to freely practice, preserving it until today, while in the middle of the 10th century the peninsula begins to take the name "Mount Athos".
The saint Athanasios Athonitis marked the monastic state with its intense presence but also with the drastic changes it brought and after securing large state funding, built the "Vasiliki" in Karyes, in the place of the small temple of the Protaton. "Vassiliki" was the beginning for further important buildings, such as the monastery of Megisti Lavra, the Zigou Monastery, the Iviron Monastery, Vatopedi and others.
The abbey of Mount Athos came in the 12th century when breeders settled on the peninsula, creating an upset in the monastic life of the monks. Thus, royal intervention expelled the breeders and all seculars, as well as women, by institutionalizing the ban on their entry, something that was only enshrined in the 20th century by the European Union. During the Ottoman Empire, and in particular in 1387, Mount Athos was subjected to the Ottomans, for a while, until he returned to the domination of the King of Thessaloniki .
In 1423 he again submits voluntarily this time, ensuring the milder treatment of the conquerors. The monks, taking advantage of this fact, managed to strengthen the field of education and, among other things, to found Athoniada, a school that managed to greatly influence the poor condition of the education of the then subjugated Hellenism.
In 1821 Mount Athos, however, set himself on the side of Halkidiki and helped in the Revolution, which later paid very expensive, financially and with victims, men, women and children, who had then found shelter in Mount Athos. According to the first standard that the Emperor John Tsimiskis endorsed, Athos is simply called "Mount", which may have been the usual name of the site.
However, the prevalence of the name "Mount Athos" seems to have taken place in the first half of the 12th century, namely in a golden-writing document of Emperor Alexios I Komnenos to the Holy Monastery of Megisti Lavra in 1144, which is definitively and officially recognized and the new name in this: "From now on, the name of Athos is called Mount Athos for ever"