VATOPEDE.
This is the largest and richest of all the monasteries of Mount Athos. It is situated on the side of a hill where a valley opens to the sea, and commands a little harbour where three small Greek vessels were lying at anchor. The buildings are of great extent, with several towers and domes rising above the walls: I should say it was not smaller than the upper ward of Windsor Castle. The original building was erected by the Emperor Constantine the Great. That worthy prince being, it appears, much afflicted by the leprosy, ordered a number of little children to be killed, a bath of juvenile blood being considered an excellent remedy. But while they were selecting them, he was told in a vision that if he would become a Christian his leprosy should depart from him: he did so, and was immediately restored to health, and all the children lived long and happily. This story is related by Moses Chorensis, whose veracity I will not venture to doubt.
In the fifth century this monastery was thrown down by Julian the Apostate. Theodosius the Great built it up again in gratitude for the miraculous escape of his son Arcadius, who having fallen overboard from his galley in the Archipelago, was landed safely on this spot through the intercession of the Virgin, to whose special honour the great church was founded: fourteen other chapels within the walls attest the piety of other individuals. In the year 862 the Saracens landed, destroyed the monastery by fire, slew many of the monks, took the treasures and broke the mosaics; but the representation of the Blessed Virgin was indestructible, and still remained safe and perfect above the altar. There was also a well under the altar, into which some of the relics were thrown and afterwards recovered by the community.
About the year 1300 St. Athanasius the Patriarch persuaded Nicholaus and Antonius, certain rich men of Adrianople, to restore the monastery once more, which they did, and taking the vows became monks, and were buried in the narthex or portico of the church. I may here observe that this was the nearest approach to being buried within the church that was permitted in the early times of Christianity, and such is still the rule observed in the Greek Church: altars were, however, raised over the tombs or places of execution of martyrs.
This church contains a great many ancient pictures of small size, most of them having the background overlaid with plates of silver-gilt: two of these are said to be portraits of the Empress Theodora. Two other pictures of larger size and richly set with jewels are interesting as having been brought from the church of St. Sophia at Constantinople, when that city fell a prey to the Turkish arms. Over the doors of the church and of the great refectory there are mosaics representing, if I remember rightly, saints and holy persons. One of the chapels, a separate building with a dome which had been newly repaired, is dedicated to the "Preservation of the Girdle of the Blessed Virgin," a relic which must be a source of considerable revenue to the monastery, for they have divided it into two parts, and one half is sent into Greece and the other half into Asia Minor whenever the plague is raging in those countries, and all those who are afflicted with that terrible disease are sure to be cured if they touch it, which they are allowed to do "for a consideration." On my inquiring how the monastery became possessed of so inestimable a medicine, I was gravely informed that, after the assumption of the Blessed Virgin, St. Thomas went up to heaven to pay her a visit, and there she presented him with her girdle. My informant appeared to have the most unshakeable conviction as to the truth of this history, and expressed great surprise that I had never heard it before.
The library, although containing nearly four thousand printed books, has none of any high antiquity or on any subject but divinity. There are also about a thousand manuscripts, of which three or four hundred are on vellum; amongst these there are three copies of the works of St Chrysostom: they also have his head in the church—that golden mouth out of which proceeded the voice which shook the empire with the thunder of its denunciations. The most curious manuscripts are six rolls of parchment, each ten inches wide and about ten feet long, containing prayers for festivals on the anniversaries of the foundation of certain churches. There were at this time above three hundred monks resident in the monastery; many of these held offices and places of dignity under the agoumenos, whose establishment resembled the court of a petty sovereign prince. Altogether this convent well illustrates what some of the great monastic establishments in England must have been before the Reformation. It covers at least four acres of ground, and contains so many separate buildings within its massive walls that it resembles a fortified town. Everything told of wealth and indolence. When I arrived the lord abbot was asleep; he was too great a man to be aroused; he had eaten a full meal in his own apartment, and he could not be disturbed. His secretary, a thin pale monk, was deputed to show me the wonders of the place, and as we proceeded through the different chapels and enormous magazines of corn, wine, and oil, the officers of the different departments bent down to kiss his hand, for he was high in the favour of my lord the abbot, and was evidently a man not to be slighted by the inferior authorities if they wished to get on and prosper. The cellarer was a sly old fellow with a thin grey beard, and looked as if he could tell a good story of an evening over a flagon of good wine. Except at some of the palaces in Germany I have never seen such gigantic tuns as those in the cellars at Vatopede. The oil is kept in marble vessels of the size and shape of sarcophagi, and there is a curious picture in the entrance room of the oil-store, which represents the miraculous increase in their stock of oil during a year of scarcity, when, through the intercession of a pious monk who then had charge of that department, the marble basins, which were almost empty, overflowed, and a river of fine fresh oil poured in torrents through the door. The frame of this picture is set with jewels, and it appears to be very ancient. The refectory is an immense room; it stands in front of the church and has twenty-four marble tables and seats, and is in the same cruciform shape as that at St. Laura. It has frequently accommodated five hundred guests, the servants and tenants of the abbey, who come on stated days to pay their rents and receive the benediction of the agoumenos. Sixty or seventy fat mules are kept for the use of the community, and a very considerable number of Albanian servants and muleteers are lodged in outbuildings before the great gate. These, unlike their brethren of Epirus, are a quiet, stupid race, and whatever may be their notions of another world, they evidently think that in this there is no man living equal in importance to the great agoumenos of Vatopede, and no earthly place to compare with the great monastery over which he rules.
From Vatopede it requires two hours and a half to ride to the monastery of
SPHIGMENOU,
which is a much smaller establishment. It is said to have been founded by the Empress Pulcheria, sister of the Emperor Theodosius the younger, and if so must be a very ancient building, for the empress died on the 18th of February in the year 453. Her brother Theodosius was known by the title or cognomen of καλλιγραφος, from the beauty of his writing: he was a protector of the Nestorian and Eutychian heretics, and ended his life on the 20th of October, 460.
This monastery is situated in a narrow valley close to the sea, squeezed in between three little hills, from which circumstance it derives its name of σφιγμενος, "squeezed together." It is inhabited by thirty monks, who are cleaner and keep their church in better order and neatness than most of their brethren on Mount Athos. Among the relics of the saints, which are the first things they show to the pilgrim from beyond the sea, is a beautiful ancient cross of gold set with diamonds. Diamonds are of very rare occurrence in ancient pieces of jewellery; it is indeed doubtful whether they were known to the ancients, adamantine being an epithet applied to the hardness of steel, and I have never seen a diamond in any work of art of the Roman or classical era. Besides the diamonds the cross has on the upper end and on the extremities of the two arms three very fine and large emeralds, each fastened on with three gold nails: it is a fine specimen of early jewellery, and of no small intrinsic value.