Mt. Athos is the mountain at the tip of the Athonite Peninsula and has been a holy site through recorded human history. Today it is an independent Christian monastary political community, known inside Greece known as the Autonomous Monastic State of the Holy Mountain. It is made up of twenty monastaries with a total population of just over 2,000 persons, recognized in the Constitution of Greece as independently sovereign “following ancient privilege”, with a capital town that is home to an appointed governor as the representative of the Greek state.

Christian monastries were first established on the peninsula in the 4th century. But it was not geographic isolation that preserved the political independence of the region, but wily political strategy. When the Turks invaded Greece in the early 15th century, the monastaries quickly pledged their allegiance to the Ottoman Empire, and in return their property was recognized as independent. The monastaries survived through difficult economic times in the 17th and 18th centuries thanks to generous donatious from Russia, Wallachia, and Serbia, but it was ultimately thanks to the biggest Muslim threat to Europe in the continent’s history that this unique Christian community maintained its independence.

With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century, Greece and Russia sparred over sovereignty of the region, with Greece easily gaining the upper hand after the Russian Revolution and Greek reconquest of Ottoman territories. Today, Mouth Athos exists within Greece as its own autonomous community with its own visa restrictions, which give travel preference to Orthodox Christians, prohibits non-Orthodox Christians from living on the peninsula, and prohibits entry of women as a “distraction.” This has been subject to heavy criticism within the EU, but the restrictions remain to this day.

Spiritually, Mount Athos comes under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople as an outlying entity not under the umbrella of any diocese.

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