St Panteleimon Monastery
St. Panteleimon Monastery is one of the 20 self-governing Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Mount Athos. It is the only Russian Orthodox monastery on the Athos peninsula. It is ranked nineteenth in the Athonite, the hierarchical order of the twenty monasteries on Mount Athos.
About this building
The monastery stands next to a little haven, It was founded by a group of monks from Kievan Rus, an ancient state that stretched from the coasts of Finland and Russia to the Black Sea. It has 15 chapels.
Like other Athonite monasteries it was destroyed several times. The most famous ambush took place in 1307 by mercenaries of the Catalan Company who burn it to the ground. Its extensive library holds 1,320 Greek manuscripts, 600 Slavonic ones, and 25,000 printed books.
