The Monastery

The Holy Monastery of Vatopedi is one of the oldest monasteries that are still preserved today. It is built on the homonymous coast of the Athos peninsula, which today is called Mount Athos. It occupies the second place in the hierarchy of the monasteries of Mount Athos and by general admission is the most beautiful monastery of Athos and one of the most beautiful monasteries in Greece.

It was built in the 10th century and contributed to the difficult times of the Turkish rule, actively participating in the process of preserving national and religious consciousness by creating educational centers of the time such as the Athoniada school, as well as in the national struggle by contributing financially and being a center of retreat and refuge for the fighters. Today it offers important charitable work, especially in northern Greece, maintaining a multitude of institutions, while it owns a multitude of shares.

According to tradition, a small church was built by Constantine the Great in the 4th century on the site where Vatopediou Monastery is today. This little church was destroyed a few years later by Julian the Transgressor to be restored by Theodosius the Great, when his son Arkadios was miraculously rescued by the Blessed Virgin Mary after a shipwreck. According to tradition, the sea miraculously took him to the spot where the Vatopedi monastery is today, where he was finally found sleeping next to a reed, hence the name Vato-child.

During the 10th century, according to the biographer of Athanasius the Athonite, three lords from Adrianople wanted to contribute financially, offering 9,000 gold coins to the Holy Monastery of Megistis Lavra. Athanasius himself urged them to found a new monastery, indicating the location of the current monastery. Thus, from a document of Thomas the First, dated in the year 985, we know today that already at the end of the 10th century, there was an abbot in the monastery by the name of Nikolaos, which is also the oldest official written testimony about the foundation of the Vatopedi Monastery.

With the Seal of the Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrius I, the Holy Monastery of Vatopedi became canonized in 1990 AD. Since the 11th century, it has held the second place in the hierarchy of the Athonian Monasteries. A representative of the Monastery assumes the duties of Primate of Mount Athos every five years. According to the Charter of Mount Athos, this, together with the representatives of the Holy Monasteries of Koutloumoussi, Karakallos and Stavronikita, constitute the second permanent quartet of Monasteries that, cyclically, every five years and for one year constitute the Agia Epistasia.