Why are women ordered to go to Mount Athos?

President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin visited Mount Athos to celebrate the millennium of the presence there of Russian Orthodox monks. This mountain - in fact a peninsula with an area of 335 square meters - is the largest site in the world where women are not allowed to enter (not only humans, but also female animals). But why is there such a ban?

Monastery is not a place for women

If you want to visit Mount Athos, the first thing you need to do is send a copy of your passport to the pilgrimage office of Mount Athos. Every day 100 Orthodox and 10 non-Orthodox pilgrims leave for a three-day stay in one of twenty monasteries located on the peninsula. In this case, women will have to forget about this idea, while men will board a ship in one of the two nearest ports. Women are not allowed to Mount Athos for a thousand years - moreover, they can not be approached more than 500 meters, even to the coast of the peninsula.

Why is there a ban?

The charter, adopted in the tenth century, states that female animals can not enter the territory of Mount Athos. At the same time, women did not say a word about the women in the statute, because at that time everyone knew that women were not allowed into the monasteries of men. It turns out that this was the simplest way to ensure the observance of celibacy by male monks. However, Mount Athos differs from other similar cases in that the entire peninsula is regarded as one big monastery.

Legend

However, there is another reason for the prohibition of admission of women to Mount Athos, and it is associated with Orthodox traditions. One of the religious stories of Orthodoxy says that the Virgin Mary lost her course when she sailed to Cyprus. As a result, she was on Mount Athos, which she liked so much that she asked her son to give her this mountain as her own - and he agreed. Until now, this territory is called "the garden of the Mother of God", and it is completely dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It is believed that she is the only one who represents her sex on Mount Athos.

Unavailable food

This applies to both humans and animals - but with the exception of cats. On the territory of Mount Athos lives a large number of cats, and this is very good, as they perfectly catch mice. That is why monks try not to pay attention to the fact that in reality they are also females. Thus, it turns out that dairy products and eggs can not be obtained on the peninsula - they are brought from other places. But the monks themselves practically do not eat dairy products - mostly it's cheese. Monks love cheese in salads. On Easter they are brought eggs, which they paint in red. This is a generally accepted standard. Naturally, they themselves can not get these eggs, since chicken can not be on the territory of the peninsula. An exception is made not only for cats, but also for wild animals, which simply could not be controlled.

Boys and eunuchs

As for boys, in recent years, politics has become much more flexible and soft. One of the main rules has always been that on Mount Athos was allowed to go only to those men who are able to grow a beard. Also in the Byzantine period, there was a ban on finding eunuchs and boys there. The reason for this prohibition was that there was a possibility that a woman could enter the monastery under the guise of an eunuch or a boy. Today, boys quite often appear on the mountain, but only if they are accompanied by adult men, usually their fathers. On the mountain come even very young children at the age of only ten years. And the monks are extremely lenient towards them - they like it very much when they have children next to them. So for today, boys are allowed to visit Mount Athos, but only accompanied by an adult male.

Women's Visits

But, despite the ban, the women still visited this peninsula. During the Greek Civil War, somewhere between 1946 and 1949 on Mount Athos shelter was given to local peasants, including girls and women. In 1953 Maria Poymenidu visited the mountain disguised as a man, which forced the Greek government to prohibit visits to the peninsula at the legislative level - up to 12 months of imprisonment for violators of this law. And more recently, in 2008, four Moldovan women were left on the peninsula by Ukrainian smugglers. They were detained by the police, but were soon released - the officers reported that these women were forgiven by the monks.