Peter the Athonite

Peter the Athonite (d. before 883) is reputed to have been the first hermit to settle upon the Mount Athos.

Onuphrius, Macarius of Egypt, and Peter of Athos

Peter is known to history primarily through unattributable legend. It is recorded that Peter was once a soldier who, through the miraculous aid of St. Nicholas and St. Simeon the Righteous, was freed from a Muslim military prison in Syria.[1] From prison St. Peter traveled to New Rome to fulfill a promise to God that he would take the monastic habit. It is held that Peter received his habit from the Pope himself who also formed the saint in monastic discipline. Receiving a vision of the Blessed Virgin and Theotokos Mary, Peter traveled to Mt. Athos and lived as an ascetic in a cave at Mount Athos for some fifty years. His relics were taken to the Monastery of Clement, a formerly existing monastery that is now occupied by the Monastery of Iviron.[2]

A hagiography devoted to Saint Peter the Athonite was written at Hilandar by Genadius the Athonite.[3]

A vita (MS BHG 1505) of Peter the Athonite was also written by an Athonite monk named Nicholas sometime around the late 10th or early 11th century.[4] It was translated into Italian in 1999.[5]

Saint Peter of Mount Athos is commemorated on 12 June[6] by the Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Roman Catholic Churches.

See also
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References
  1. "Peter the Athonite", Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
  2. Speake, Graham (2014). Mount Athos: renewal in paradise. Limni, Evia, Greece: Denise Harvey. pp. 41–42. ISBN 978-960-7120-34-2. OCLC 903320491.
  3. Spadijer, Irena. "Old Serbian Literature and Its Mediaeval Manuscript Heritage, in: The World of Serbian Manuscripts (12th-17th centuries), edd. D. Otašević, Z. Rakić, I. Špadijer, Belgrade 2016, 153-173".
  4. Greenfield, Richard P. H.; Talbot, Alice-Mary Maffry (2016). Holy Men of Mount Athos. Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library. Vol. 40. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. p. ix. ISBN 978-0-674-08876-4.
  5. Rigo, Antonio (1999). Alle origini deli Athos: La Vita di Pietro l'Athonita. Magnano.
  6. Great Synaxaristes: (in Greek) Ὁ Ὅσιος Πέτρος ὁ ἐν τῷ Ἁγίῳ Ὄρει ἀσκήσας. 12 Ιουνίου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ.

Sources
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