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Map of Athos Peninsula

It is located on the Athos peninsula of Halkidiki, in the Greek part of Macedonia. It was officially established in 963, when a monk named Athanasios the Athonite built the Monastery of the Great Lavra.

However, anchorites had been living at the northern end of the Athos peninsula since the middle of the nineth century. In the centuries that followed, twenty monasteries were built, together with a number of smaller communities known as sketae. Nowadays, many monks live in kellia, kalyves, kathismata, and hesychasteria, which are various forms of small monastic communities or hermitages. The administrative centre of Mount Athos is the village of Karyes.

According to the legend Panagia, the Virgin Mary and Mother of God, was sailing accompanied by St John the Evangelist on her way from Joppa to Cyprus to visit Lazarus. When the ship was blown out of course to then pagan Athos it was forced to drop anchor near the port of Klement, close to the present monastery of Iviron.

The Virgin walked ashore and overwhelmed by the wonderful and wild natural beauty of the mountain, She blessed it and asked her Son for it to be Her garden. A voice was heard: "let this place be your inheritance and your garden, a paradise and a haven of salvation for those seeking to be saved". Since that moment the mountain was consecrated as the garden of the Mother of God and it is out of bounds to any other women.