Women and Mt Athos1

In the mid-fifteenth century, an elderly man named Markellos, a generous benefactor of Xeropotamou on Mt Athos, decided to become a monk at the monastery. He left his wife Nymphodora behind at a nunnery near Hierissos and just outside the boundaries of Athos because 'Mount Athos is unapproachable (ἀνεπίβατον) by the female sex except for the all-holy Mother of God', as Nymphodora stated in her final will and testament. 2 Her words are unambiguous testimony to the exclusion of women from Mt Athos – the principle of abaton, a practice which seems to have been in force from the time when hermits first arrived on the deserted peninsula in the ninth century. 3

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