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Social and political developments. Church affairs
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Page 8
The names of Nicephorus Phocas and John Tzimisces are connected with the beginning of a new era in the life of Mount Athos, famous for its monasteries. Individual hermits had lived on this mountain since the very beginning of monasticism in the fourth century, and several small and poor monasteries grew up there about the seventh century. During the period of the iconoclastic troubles of the eighth century the inaccessible districts of Mount Athos were sought as a refuge by many persecuted image-worshipers, who brought with them numerous church utensils, relics, and manuscripts. But life on Mount Athos was not safe because of the repeated maritime raids of the Arabs, during which many monks were killed or carried off as prisoners.
Previous to the middle of the tenth century Mount Athos had gone through several periods of desolation. In the time of Nicephorus Phocas, the Athonian monastic organizations became much stronger, especially when St. Athanasius founded the first large monastery with its cenobitic organization and new set of rules (typikon, in Greek, the usual name for monastic rules in the Byzantine Empire) which determined the further life of the monastery. The hermits (anchorites) of Mount Athos, opposed to the introduction of cenobitic monasticism, sent a complaint against Athanasius to John Tzimisces, the successor of Nicephorus Phocas, accusing Athanasius of breaking the ancient customs of the Holy Mountain (as Athos was called in the typikon of Athanasius). Tzimisces investigated this complaint and confirmed the ancient Athonian rule, which tolerated the existence of both anchorites and cenobites.
Following the lead of St. Athanasius, many new monasteries, Greek and others, were founded. In the time of Basil II there was already one Iberian or Georgian monastery; emigrants from Italy founded two, a Roman and an Amalfitan. Bishop Porphyrius Uspensky, a profound Russian student of the Christian East, asserted that when the aged Athanasius died (about 1000 A.D). there were three thousand various monks on Mount Athos. As early as the eleventh century there was a Russian Laura on this mountain. The name of Holy Mountain for Mount Athos, as an official term, appears for the first time in the second set of rules (typicon) given by Emperor Constantine IX Monomachus about the middle of the eleventh century. The administration of the monasteries was entrusted to a council of Abbots (Igumenos) headed by the first one among them, the protos (from the Greek πρῶτος, the first). The council was known as the protaton. Thus, in the time of the Macedonian dynasty Mount Athos became a very important cultural center, not only for the Byzantine Empire, but for the world at large.
A History of the Byzantine Empire - Table of Contents
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/vasilief/social-political-developments.asp?pg=8
