Skete Agiou Panteleimonos

Skete Agiou Panteleimonos

The Skete of Agiou Panteleimonos, part of the Koutloumousiou monastery, extends on a verdant slope between the Koutloumousiou and Ivera monasteries, near Karyes and at a distance of 20 minutes to the east of the main monastery.

History

The history of the hermitage begins in 1780, when following the request of the hieromonk Charalambous to the Koutloumousiou monastery, he was granted the cell of Saint Panteleimon, so that it could form the nucleus of a hermitage. Its Sunday was founded just two years later, in 1782, and was inaugurated in 1790, with the iconography dated 1791.

The first regulation of the hermitage has the signatures of 14 monks, including Charalambous. A new regulation was drawn up in 1799, recorded in two codes, one deposited in the sovereign monastery and one in the hermitage. It is ratified by Patriarch Gregory V.

In the same year, 1799, the elder Kyrillos Kastanofyllis from Karpenisi, who served as secretary to Nicodemus of Agioreitis, was an ascetic in the hermitage.

The second builder is considered to be Dikaios Charalambos, who repaired the Sunday, the Bank, the hospitality areas and the chapel of Agios Minas, which was inaugurated by the complacent in Sketi, former Metropolitan of Kasos and Karpathos, Nilos.

Efforts for financial aid begin already a few years after the foundation of the order with missions both to the region of Constantinople and to Russia, and continue until the 20th century. For this purpose, the monks Panaretos (1797–1798), Grigentios (1897), Dorotheos (1922) and Damianos (1922) were sent from time to time. The contribution of Archimandrite Cosmas Liveropoulos, vicar in Vienna, who offered a significant amount of money in memory of his brother Damianos (1803–1856), who was a professor of Theology at the Othoneian University of Athens, is also considered important. There was also financial support from the scholar Bartholomaios Koutloumoussianos (1772–1851).

The events after the suppression of the revolution of 1821 in Halkidiki, also affected the Koutloumousian Skete. The Ottoman troops looted both the Sunday and the monks' huts. The monks left the hermitage until the withdrawal of the occupying troops in 1830. When they returned, they repaired the Sunday and the huts.

Today the Skite of Koutloumousiou consists of a total of 23 huts, with 12 of them remaining deserted. In the remaining 11, a total of 12 monks leave. Between the huts is the cell of the Holy Forerunner, where Dionysios of Fournas, of the Nativity of the Virgin (Panagouda), with the first elder Paisios the Saint, and of Saint Euthymios, called the Bookbinder, because of the hieromonk Niphonos, was buried (1887 –1953), whose occupation was bookbinding.

Library

The Library of the Sunday of Skete is housed in the chapel of the cemetery, which was built in 1848 by the monk Benedictus.

For the oldest library of Kyriakos, a handwritten catalog (no. 28) from 1808 is preserved, with the title: "Here are noted by name all the books of Kyriakos, as far as they are currently located".

In 1885, after the theft of manuscripts and by the decision of the Koutloumousiou monastery, interrogations were conducted by the monks Chariton, Sophronio and Pagratio, while on Sunday, during the Divine Liturgy, an eulogy was read for the perpetrators. The stolen manuscripts have not been located.

The first published catalog of the manuscripts of the hermitage was published in 1967 by Lino Politis and Manolis Katramados (See Bibliography).

Library-Archive

In the library of the monastery, its archive is also kept. The first document is the grant of the cell to the monk Charalambos, founder of the hermitage, from the Koutloumousiou monastery. Other documents are also important, such as the first and second regulations of the hermitage, documents concerning issues, letters of patriarchs and the ruling monastery.
Library-Manuscript Codices. Today, the Koutloumousian hermitage has 38 manuscripts, which chronologically belong to the 16th to 18th centuries. In terms of their content, all the manuscripts are ecclesiastical, with most of them narrating the liturgies of saints. There are also two parchment leaves (no. 31) from the 14th century, which contain tropes in memory of saints.

Library-Print Books

A catalog of the skete's forms has not yet been published, but its antiquities are estimated at about 500.

Thomas Papadopoulos in the Libraries of Mount Athos (p. 23), the first Greek edition that he has found in the Kyriako of the Skete of Agios Panteleimonos dates to 1575, and it is a Pentecostarion, printed in Venice, close to Jacobus Leoginos and edited by Simeon Verivelos.

Source https://www.aboutlibraries.gr/libraries/handle/20.500.12777/lib_4522