The Lavra of the Protaton of Karyes

Oxford University Library

The Lavra of the Protaton of Karyes

The Lavra of the Protaton of Karyes is located almost in the middle of the mountainous peninsula of Athos. It grows on the eastern slope of the elongated mountain mass, at an altitude of approximately 350 meters above sea level.

History

The Lavra of the Carians is related to the beginnings of Athonian monasticism and long precedes the establishment of the first large community, in 963, the Lavra of Athanasios. It appears under various names: Protaton, Proteion, Great Middle, Great Synax of the Carians, Seat of the Carians, Skete of the Carians, Monastery of the Carians, Holy Community. The temple of Protatus is a symbol of the unity of the monks. It is the official place of worship of the First, in which his election takes place. In recent years, the name Protaton has been used to designate mainly the temple.

For the first time the Protos of Athos, which is based in Karyes, is mentioned in 908 in a validating document of Leo VI the Wise. He is the "most venerable monk Andreas and first hesychast of the mountain of the same name". We do not know if he is the first monk to assume the office, but his appearance at this time presupposes the operation of a central organization, which chooses a person to exercise an administrative function. Therefore, the beginnings of the representation of the monks living in the scattered monasteries of the peninsula by some body must be sought in the last decades of the 9th century. At the time of Athanasius Athonite, the institution of the administration of the commons had already been formed.

In 972 the emperor John Tzimiskis ratified the first Standard of Mount Athos, which was signed by the then First Athanasios, also Athanasios, abbot of Lavra, and by 46 other abbots of monasteries. The original of this rare document, also called Tragos, because it was written on thick parchment, signed personally by Ioannis Tzimiski, is preserved to this day. This "statutory charter" mainly regulates the operation and responsibilities of the central administration of Mount Athos.

This Standard was completed by that of Constantine Monomachus, in 1045. A third Standard was issued by the emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, in 1406.

The Lavra of Kareon was on the one hand a monastic institution in itself, which had a large number of cells under its direct jurisdiction, and on the other hand it was a supervisory body over the other independent institutions. However, as the power of the monasteries increased over time, the jurisdictions of the Protate as an institution decreased, until they were completely abolished in 1661. Then the Protate remained only as a common organ of internal administration of Mount Athos.

In the 18th century we have a serious attempt at administrative reorganization by the patriarch Gabriel IV. In 1783 he issued a Standard, based on which the representative system of administration is consolidated. According to this, the administration is exercised by four superintendents, elected from the designated four quintessences of the twenty monasteries. One of them must come from the great monasteries. Also, a new four-part seal is introduced.

The information on the number of monks residing in Protato and in the cells of the surrounding area of Kary begins at the end of the 15th century. In 1489 Isaiah Chilandarinos counted 30 monks. In the Ottoman tax register of 1520, 33 monks are recorded. In the Narrative of Joachim, abbot of Panteleimonos monastery, from 1560, the monks amount to 171.

The administrative buildings of the Protatus did not avoid the adventures, which mainly the monasteries had. In 1694, during the raid of the robber Tzelepis on Karyes, the son of the aga, a seimenis, two monks were killed and the building of Mesi was set on fire. The aga's house was an imposing building contiguous with the tower of Protatus. The Synaxis decided for more security to renovate the tower of Protatus, which was located near the cloister of the Vatopedi monastery. In continuous buildings around it, the Synaxis and the aga of the place are now housed. About two centuries after its construction, in 1884, it was set on fire. It was renovated in 1890, when the second floor was reconstructed, where today the collection of manuscripts and the oldest forms, published up to 1900, is housed, while in an adjacent room on the same floor is the archive of the Protato (where today the "goat" is kept in a vault ").

The most important building of Protatus in Karyes is the temple. Dedicated to the Dormition of the Virgin, it is the oldest surviving church on Mount Athos, with the original building dating back to the beginning of the 10th century. It has the form of a three-aisled basilica and has two naves. Its interior was told by the painting of Manuel Panselinos (end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th century). The frescoes are considered masterpieces of Byzantine art and among the most important creations of the "Macedonian" school of painting. The iconostasis dates from the 10th century. and it is marble.

Iconostasis

In the Protato is kept the Axion istin, the Ephesian icon of the entire Athenian state, which is on the throne behind the holy bank. In the center of the performance is depicted the Virgin Dexiokratousa in the type of Eleusis. Image is lightly lined. Its damages are extensive and make its dating impossible.

From the Komnenian period comes a wonderful icon, which represents the apostle Peter in monumental dimensions, standing face to face, holding a scroll in his left hand, with a text from his letter.

Sacristy

The heirlooms of Protatus are kept on the third floor of the old tower, which has been converted into a museum-vault. The tower, located in the center of Karia, has been integrated and forms a single whole with the new building, where the offices of the Holy Community are housed. The ceiling of the sacristy is covered with frescoes (2000), the work of the monk Loukas Xenofontinos, which tell the history of Mount Athos from the 9th century. until the liberation from the Ottomans (12.11.1912). In the sacristy there are portable icons, silver-gilt sacred vessels, doorposts, chrysobula and kerobula, firmans, etc.

Library

The history of this library is relatively recent. The evidence for the existence of books in Protato starts from 1766 and thickens with the establishment of the "second" Athoniada in Karyes, i.e. after 1850.

Library-Archive
The Archive of the Lavra of Kareon is kept "in the library of the Protatos Tower", on the second floor. On the first floor of the same tower, together with a small collection of images, there are documents and codices from the 19th and 20th centuries.

The type of documents one would expect to find in the Protato differs considerably from that of the deeds of the various monasteries. Since we have no grants of property in the Primate, and that disputes with monasteries are rare, the title deeds, legal decisions, and deeds of donation, which largely supply the records of the monasteries, are absent from this collection. On the other hand, one will find acts related to the functioning of the community: imperial acts granting privileges to the entire Hagioreite territory, acts of civil servants issued pursuant to imperial decrees, patriarchal acts on the same subject and letters addressed to the community of Protatus. All the Byzantine documents of the Protato, which are known today, belong to these categories.

With the exception of one document of 1500, the Protato's record presents a large gap in its continuity. From 1406 with the Standard of Manuel II Palaiologos to 1668 there is no document. The Community had established the custody of the original documents in certain monasteries because they were better fortified. However, this material was never fully assembled again. For example, the entire archive of the Holy Community of the period 1.6.1821–31.5.1822 was discovered by I. Mamalakis in the monastery of Chilandari, where it had been moved to be protected from the Turks. Thus, the surviving documents (up to 1800) are few.

Judging by the rarity of documents dating from the Byzantine era (only three), it seems that no special attention was paid to them during this period. Around the 14th and 15th centuries, at a time when the leadership of the Community was in the hands of the Slavs, the most important acts were given in Slavonic summaries, ranging from one to four lines.

The part of the archive from 1668 onwards consists of 45 codices and 6 loose documents. The codes are divided into two large categories, those containing copies of documents and those containing financial accounts. The codices contain patriarchal documents, decisions of the Great Synod, the overseers of the Community and the monasteries, letters, and various others, such as reminders and lists of debts, confessions, deeds of delivery-receipt, etc.

In addition to documents in Greek, there are also documents in Turkish and Romanian.

In 1975 the Acts of the Protatus were included in the series Archives de l'Athos, where in the 7th volume Denise Papachrysanthou published 14 Byzantine documents, the last one dating from 1500. The publication was essentially based on Gabriel Millet's 1918 photography and that by Franz Dölger in 1941.

The post-Byzantine documents (ca. 1453–1800) of the archive were classified in 1982, during a scientific mission of the Center for Byzantine Research of the National Research Foundation. They were published by Charalambos Gasparis in 1991 in the Athonika Symmeikta series (See Bibliography).

Library-Manuscript Codices

The collection of manuscripts is also housed in the tower of the old Protatus building. The total number of manuscripts in the Protatus collection is about 155 codices, with 7 of them in Slavonic. Of the manuscripts, 49 are parchments, with two of them in large letters.

The manuscripts described by Spyridon Lambros in his Catalog are 81, a number that was also reproduced by Gerasimos Smyrnakis in 1903.

There is also a summary list, compiled in 1888 by the hieromonk Chrysostomos Lavriotis, then schoolmaster of Athoniada, following a decision of the Holy Community. It is divided into two sections, the manuscripts and the printed forms: "In the Sanctuary of Mount Athos Athos Community Library Catalog of seven pages. octogenarian divided into two parts and containing I the manuscripts, II the forms. After tables of names of things and writing...'.

This list includes, together with the manuscripts described by Lambros, a total of 114 codices (that is, 33 new manuscripts), including seven Slavonic ones.

Then, in 1953, Manousos Manousakas compiled a first record of them, where he singled out the Slavonic. He identified 4 other manuscripts, the three parchments, which were not included in Chrysostom's Catalogue.

Manousakas handed over his record to Linos Politis, who, in 1958, edited and completed the description of this catalog. The catalog was published in 1970 (see Bibliography) and brings the manuscripts to 117.

Another 38 manuscript codices were identified by Yiannis Karas in 1983. These are manuscripts of mainly ecclesiastical content, from the 15th-19th centuries, of which eight are Slavonic. Among the Greek manuscripts is a "Catechism of our holy and god-bearing Theodore of the confessed abbot of the studio".

Among the illustrated manuscripts, we highlight code 11. It is a Gospel from the 12th century, where the 4 evangelists are depicted in two full-page miniatures in pairs. Also noteworthy are codices 20 and 41, an Evangelist and a Tetraevangel, both from the 10th century, with fine representations of the four evangelists.

Codex 40, which contains the sequence and life of Athanasius Athonite, is the product of a saintly workshop.

Also, Codex 56, 10 leaves, preserves a passage from the Gospel of Matthew and comes from a codex of the 8th century. Today it is tied to later paper code.

Library-Print Books

The printed books of the Protatus library are kept on the second floor of the old tower. Publications dated after 1900 are located on the first floor, where together with the latest Greek books, printed books in foreign languages are also kept.

The number of editions in the catalog of Chrysostom Lavriotis up to 1890 reaches 77. As the library of Protatos is a work mainly of the 20th century, 220 of the 269 works it has today are acquisitions after 1900. But the oldest books before in 1900 they outnumber the younger ones. Of the 269 works, 228 are publications from the period up to 1890 and only 41 from the last decade of the 19th century. The library was built mainly from donations from Athonian monasteries, monks or lay people, without excluding purchases. The forms seized by the customs office of Dafni were also sent to Protatus, as antiquities are forbidden to be exported from Mount Athos.

Due to the relationship with the Athonia School, the library contains many educational publications, with works by classical authors, positive sciences, etc.

The first edition identified by Yiannis Karas dates back to 1566 and is the Synopsis of Histories by Georgios Kedrinos, printed in Basel, Switzerland.

Source https://www.aboutlibraries.gr/libraries/handle/20.500.12777/lib_4479

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