The monastic community of Mount Athos is an Eastern Orthodox community of monks in Greece who hold the status of an autonomous region as well as the combined rights of a decentralized administration, a region and a municipality, with a territory encompassing the distal part of the Athos peninsula including Mount Athos. The bordering proximal part of the peninsula belongs to the regular Aristotelis community in Central Macedonia.
In modern Greek, the community is commonly referred to as () translating to 'Holy Mountain', while Oros Athos () is used to denote the physical mountain and Hersonissos tou Atho () in respect to peninsula.
The community includes 20 monasteries and the settlements that they depend on. The monasteries house around 2,000 Eastern Orthodox monks from Greece and many other countries, including Eastern Orthodox countries such as Romania, Moldova, Georgia, Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia and Russia, who live an ascetic life at Athos, isolated from the rest of the world. The Athonite monasteries feature a rich collection of well-preserved artifacts, rare books, ancient documents, and artworks of immense historical value, and Mount Athos has been listed as a World Heritage Site since 1988.
Although Mount Athos is legally part of the European Union like the rest of Greece, the Monastic community institutions have a special jurisdiction which was reaffirmed during the admission of Greece to the European Community (precursor to the EU). This empowers the monastic community's authorities to restrict the free movement of people and goods in its territory; in particular, only males are allowed to enter, while women and most female animals are banned from Mount Athos by religious tradition of the community which lives there.
Political structure
A territory of Greece, the monastic community enjoys autonomous self-government. The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs manages relations between the monastic community and the Government of Greece.
The territory of the monastic community is contiguous with Aristotelis, separated by a fence about in length. Karyes is the administrative center and the seat of the synod and of the Civil Administrator of Mount Athos with his staff of lay people in the service of the monastic community.
The monasteries of the monastic community are stauropegic, i.e. they are exempt from the authority of the local bishop and only report to the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
Administration and organization
According to the constitution of Greece, the territory of the monastic community which is "[t]he Athos peninsula extending beyond Megali Vigla and constituting the region of Agio Oros" is, "following ancient privilege", "a self-governed part of the Greek State, whose sovereignty thereon shall remain intact". The constitution also states that "[a]ll persons leading a monastic life thereon acquire Greek citizenship without further formalities, upon admission as novices or monks." The constitution states "[h]eterodox or schismatic persons" are forbidden to stay on the territory. The community consists of 20 main monasteries which constitute the Holy Community. Karyes is home to a civil administrator as the representative of the Greek state. The governor is an executive appointee.
The monastic community is under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew I.
Administration
Civil authorities are represented by the civil administrator, appointed by the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He supervises the function of the institutions and the public order.
Each of the 20 monasteries is administered by an archimandrite elected by the monks for life. The Convention of the brotherhood (Γεροντία) is the legislative body. Each of the other establishments (sketes, cells, huts, retreats, and hermitages) is a dependency of one of the 20 monasteries and is assigned to the monks by a document called omologon (ομόλογον).
Monks
All persons leading a monastic life in the monastic community receive Greek citizenship upon admission as novices or monks. Laymen can visit the monastic community, but they need a special permit known as a diamonitirion ().
In 17 of the monasteries, the monks are predominantly ethnic Greek. The Helandariou Monastery is Serbian and Montenegrin, the Zografou Monastery is Bulgarian and the Agiou Panteleimonos monastery is Russian.
