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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Part 50<\/a><\/p>\n Returning to our room, the first thing I did was take out a map of Athos. We began our “Council at Fili”, studying the relief of the Athos spurs.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 If we get to Daphni before noon, we can climb to the monastery of Xeropotamou. St Panteleimon is within easy reach, just down the path from there.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 What kind of sights are there in this monastery?<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 In which one, Xeropotamou?<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Yes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 As in any monastery on Mount Athos, there are many relics of saints there. A large particle of the True Cross with a nail hole is perhaps the monastery’s most important relic. It is said to be the largest fragment on Athos. According to legend, this monastery has suffered from some disastrous events in its history.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Can you elaborate? – asked Vladimir Georgievich.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Sure. The Xeropotamou Monastery traces its history back to the 11th century\u2026 \u2013 leaving the map, we sat down on our beds and proceeded to our “bedtime stories”. This little miracle of human communication was one of our favorite pastimes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 It happened in the 13th century, after the Fourth Crusade of the Latins (1204), when the crusaders captured Constantinople. The Byzantine emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, a supporter of a union with the Catholics, having arrived on Athos, ordered the brethren of Xeropotamou to perform a Catholic Mass together with the Latin priests who were part of his retinue.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0The abbot and some of the hieromonks did not find the courage to stand up for Orthodoxy to death and agreed to celebrate Mass with the Catholics under pressure of the emperor’s threats. When the iniquitous service began, the walls of the monastery shook, as if there was an earthquake, causing the monastery to crumble to the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0All the perpetrators of lawlessness perished under the ruins, and the surviving emperor fled from Athos in disgrace. Miraculously, this strange earthquake damaged not one of the Athos monasteries. After the death of the apostate, his pious son, the emperor Andronikos fully realized the significance of this sign of God. He restored the monastery, where a large particle of the True Cross was kept since the time of the Emperor Romanos. The relic has a hole from a nail, used to pierce the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0Outside the window, subtle splashes of the sea waves could be heard. The sun was finishing its endless procession across the horizon, disappearing on the other side of Mount Athos. It became quite dark in the cell.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Father Nikolai, how do you know this story so well?<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 I have a writer friend. I have read it in one of his books about Athos.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Interesting.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Well, shall we pray now? We have to make an early start for the morning service tomorrow. It is time to gain some strength.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Yes, it\u2019s time to pray and go to bed, \u2013 Igor summed up one more day of our stay on the Holy Mountain.<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Shall we set an alarm clock?<\/span><\/p>\n \u2014 Let the semantron wake us up.<\/span><\/p>\n On Mount Athos, we began to read the evening rule in turn. This way, everyone had a chance to become a reader. Besides, this helped each of us stay focused, waiting for his turn, so we all participated in this sacred ceremony. After the last \u201cAmen\u201d and a few minutes at the washstand, we switched off the light, allowing our tired bodies some rest until the morning. Good night everyone!<\/span><\/p>\n Translated by The Catalogue of Good Deeds<\/em><\/p>\n Part 1<\/a> Part 50 A Bedtime Story about Xeropotamou Monastery Returning to our room, the first thing I did was take out a map of Athos….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[113],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-38063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-and-the-world","tag-athos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/9-464-2.jpg","views":{"total":109,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1768412436},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paPyw9-9TV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38063"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38066,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38063\/revisions\/38066"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catalog.obitel-minsk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A Bedtime Story about Xeropotamou Monastery<\/h3>\n
\nPart 2<\/a>
\nPart 3<\/a>
\nPart 4<\/a>
\nPart 5<\/a>
\nPart 6<\/a>
\nPart 7<\/a>
\nPart 8<\/a>
\nPart 9<\/a>
\nPart 10<\/a>
\nPart 11<\/a>
\nPart 12<\/a>
\nPart 13<\/a>
\nPart 14<\/a>
\nPart 15<\/a>
\nPart 16<\/a>
\nPart 17<\/a>
\nPart 18<\/a>
\nPart 19<\/a>
\nPart 20<\/a>
\nPart 21<\/a>
\nPart 22<\/a>
\nPart 23<\/a>
\nPart 24<\/a>
\nPart 25<\/a>
\nPart 26<\/a>
\nPart 27<\/a>
\nPart 28<\/a>
\nPart 29<\/a>
\nPart 30<\/a>
\nPart 31<\/a>
\nPart 32<\/a>
\nPart 33<\/a>
\nPart 34<\/a>
\nPart 35<\/a>
\nPart 36<\/a>
\nPart 37<\/a>
\nPart 38<\/a>
\nPart 39<\/a>
\nPart 40<\/a>
\nPart 41<\/a>
\nPart 42<\/a>
\nPart 43<\/a>
\nPart 44<\/a>
\nPart 45<\/a>
\nPart 46<\/a>
\nPart 47<\/a>
\nPart 48<\/a>
\nPart 49<\/a>
\nPart 50<\/a>
\nPart 51<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"