Simonos Petra Monastery
Simonos Petra Monastery is one of the 20 self-governing Eastern Orthodox monasteries in Mount Athos. It is ranked thirteenth in the Athonite, the hierarchical order of the twenty monasteries on the Athos peninsula.
About this building
The monastery was founded around 1257 by Simon the Athonite. In the 14th century it underwent major renovation and expansion works financed by John Uglesha, a Serbian despot who can be considered as a "second founder" due to the magnitude of his investment in this monastic complex. All this work was unfortunately lost in 1581 due to a fire that burnt the monastery to the ground. Its recovery was possible in the 17th century, during the Ottoman rule, due to the good relantionship of the monastic community with Princes of Wallachia. The monastery was again destroyed in the 18th century and rebuilt with Russian support.
The library contains mainly post-Byzantine documents since many of the manuscripts that were treasured were lost in the repeated fires that ravaged the monastery.
