Mount Athos

The Holy Mountain is a peninsula in northern Greece given over entirely to prayer. By tradition the Theotokos was blown ashore there on her way to Cyprus and asked her Son for it as her garden. St. Athanasios founded the Great Lavra in 963, and today there are twenty ruling monasteries, seventeen Greek, one Russian, one Serbian and one Bulgarian, along with sketes and hermitages, Romanian ones among them, home to about two thousand monks. Only men may visit, with a special permit.

• Date: 963