Holy Monastery of Simonos Petra

The seven-story Holy Monastery of Simon Petra, or simply Sionopetra, is undoubtedly the boldest building on Mount Athos. It stands arrogantly, at a height of 330 meters, on the edge of a rocky mountain range, on granite. The monastery was founded by Saint Sion the Myrovlitis around 1257 and was renovated in 1363. Simonopetra was tested by large fires, which destroyed a big part of its important archival material and library in 1581, 1622, and 1891.

Sionopetra does not belong to the self-contained monasteries that we usually see due to the narrowness of the space. The Katholikon of the monastery, dedicated to the Nativity of Christ, in its original form was built around 1600, while its current form was formed after the fire of 1891. The monastery has 4 external chapels and 8 internal chapels.

The monastery’s archive holds several Greek, Turkish and Romanian documents, as well as inscriptions and manuscripts, while there is a historical library with remarkable books. Almost all of the archival material is post-Byzantine. In the treasury is a treasure trove of works of art, consisting of icons, aphids, silver, anti-stamps, stamps, and engravings. On the first floor of the east wing of the diocese is the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, whose left hand has survived indestructible, and sometimes its temperature is the temperature of a human hand, for two thousand years.