St. Panteleimon Monastery is built on the southwest side of the peninsula of Mount Athos. It is often referred to as 'Russian' and does have historical and liturgical ties to the Russian Orthodox Church; nevertheless, like all the other monastic settlements on Mount Athos, the monastery is under the direct ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and all its monks are citizens of Greece, usually naturalized.
The monastery was founded by several monks from Kievan Rus in the 11th century, which is why it is known as 'Rossikon'. It has been inhabited by mainly Russian monks in certain periods of its history. It was recognized as a separate monastery in 1169.
The monastery prospered in the 16th and 17th centuries being lavishly sponsored by the tsars of Moscovy, but it declined dramatically in the 18th century to the point where there were only two Russian and two Bulgarian monks left by 1730.
The construction of the present monastery on a new site, closer to the seashore, was carried out during the first two decades of the 19th century, with the financial help of the ruler of Moldo-Wallachia, Skarlatos Kallimachos. The monastery occupies the nineteenth rank in the hierarchical order of the twenty Athonite monasteries.
In 1913, the monastery was the site of a raging theological argument (Imiaslavie) among Russian monks, which led to tsarist Russian intervention and the deportation of approximately 800 of the monks on the losing side of the debate.
The Monastery of St Panteleimon was repeatedly gutted by fires, most famously in 1307 (when Catalan mercenaries set it aflame) and in 1968.
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