Venerable Athanasius of Athos

Venerable Athanasius of Athos was born around 920–930 in Trebizond and baptized Abraham. Orphaned early, he was raised by a devout nun and later studied in Constantinople, becoming renowned as a rhetorician. Seeking solitude, he was tonsured a monk with the name Athanasius by St. Michael Maleinos at the Kyminas monastery in Asia Minor, and around 958–960 withdrew to Mount Athos to escape worldly fame. With the support of his friend, the future emperor Nicephorus Phocas, Saint Athanasius founded the Great Lavra on Athos in 963 — the first and foremost cenobitic monastery of the Holy Mountain, becoming the father of organized Athonite monasticism. He established a strict communal rule modeled on the ancient Palestinian monasteries. Venerable Athanasius died around the year 1000, when the dome of a church under construction collapsed upon him.