Buildings of the Byzantine Period

Apart from the walls and the towers which we have described above – and, of course, the katholikon – there are two other surviving buildings of the Monastery which date from the Byzantine era: the Chapel of the Aghioi Anargyroi and the bell-tower. An inscription of 1319/20 incorporated today into the western facade of the exonarthex of the katholikon  refers to the reconstruction of the refectory of that time and of the olive press, a building that may have been connected to it in some way²⁰.

Of the Byzantine refectory we cannot at present give a further assessment, apart from the fact that it was evidently equipped with the marble tables which were later installed in the present refectory²¹ (of 1785) and that it most probably stood on approximately the same site²².

The Chapel of the Aghioi Anargyroi  is a small three-aisled basilica with wall-paintings apparently of the 14th century but over-painted in the middle of the 19th, when extensive repair work was undertaken and gave the building its present shape²³.

The church was connected with an infirmary which survived to the north of it probably until the middle of the 19th century²⁴. It is not impossible that this infirmary had some connection with the one which is cited as among the benefactions of the Serbian Despot John Uglesha in the chrysobull* at Simonopetra, dated 1368²⁵. At all events, Uglesha is depicted in the wall-paintings of the narthex (1847)²⁶ as a founder, together with St Sabbas of Chilandari whom the written tradition of the Monastery regards as a founder of the church²⁷.

The bell-tower of 1427²⁸ is today the only one of Byzantine origin on the Holy Mountain. Its elegant structure takes the form of two zones of high-shafted, blind arcades on the outside walls, and it has a large two-lobed opening in each of the sides at the highest level. Its wooden roof, possibly a model for many other Athonite bell-towers, is not unlikely to be of later origin.