Monastery of St Panteleimon

St. Panteleimon Monastery

Άγιος Παντελεήμων
Location within Mount Athos
Monastery information
Full name	Holy Monastery of Agiou Panteleimonos
Other names	Rossikon (Russian)
Dedicated to	St. Panteleimon
Diocese	Mount Athos
Prior	Eulogius (Ivanov)
Site
Location	Mount Athos, Greece
Coordinates	40°14′13″N 24°12′07″E / 40.23694°N 24.20194°E / 40.23694; 24.20194Coordinates: 40°14′13″N 24°12′07″E / 40.23694°N 24.20194°E / 40.23694; 24.20194
Public access	Men only

St. Panteleimon Monastery (Russian: Пантелеймонов; Greek: Άγιος Παντελεήμων, Aghios Panteleimon), known as Rossikon (Русикон, Ρωσσικόν), is an Eastern Orthodox monastery built on the southwest side of the peninsula of Mount Athos in Macedonia, Northern Greece. 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.

Russian pilgrim Isaiah confirms that, by the end of the 15th century, the monastery was Russian.

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 nineteenth century, with the financial help of the ruler of Moldo-Wallachia, Skarlatos Kallimachos. Russian monks numbered 1,000 in 1895, 1,446 in 1903, and more than 2,000 by 1913. During the Tatar yoke in Russia, most of the monks were Greeks and Serbs. The monastery occupies the nineteenth rank in the hierarchical order of the twenty Athonite monasteries. It is coenobitic (i.e., it is a communal monastic life). It also contains four sketes.