Tributes / Holy Monasteries of Mt Athos / Holy Mount Athos
Monk Chariton of Karoulia

The Holy Monastery of Xeropotamou

5 November 2011

The monastery was founded in 956 and is the oldest surviving monastery on Mount Athos. Due to the unstable ground on which the monastery is built, it has suffered and is still suffering serious damage, an example of this is the katholikon (dedicated to the Forty Martyrs), which must have been built in the 10th century, and was rebuilt from the foundations at the end of the 13th century, perhaps in 1445, in the mid 16th century, and once again in 1763, by Kaisarios Daponte. It was frescoed in 1783. The monastery’s most important treasures are a large fragment of the True Cross and the Panagjario, known as Pulcheria’s cup. The monastery owns the installations at Dafni, the port of Mount Athos.

Source: Monk Chariton, Images of Athos, 3rd edition, Mount Athos, 2007

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