UNKNOWN 19th CENTURY ATHONITE POEM ABOUT A QUARREL FOR LAND AND CHOLERA
UNKNOWN 19th CENTURY ATHONITE POEM ABOUT A QUARREL FOR LAND AND CHOLERA

Summary/Abstract: The article analyses an Athonite poetical text which describes a conflict between the monasteries of Zographou and Chilandar over landed property situated inside the Holy Mountain. It refers to no place names, but pays special attention to the visit of a nameless Ottoman governor of Thessalonica, accompanied by the consuls of France, Russia and Austria, to Mount Athos. His intention was to solve the difference and to reconcile the two monasteries, but his efforts failed. He then granted a special document (ilam) to Zographou, and met an unnamed ex-patriarch of Constantinople in the monastery of Espigmenou. The authorized representatives of Zographou and Chilandar, Dositheos and Onouphrios, travelled to Constantinople in order to present the case to the sultan’s court, but during their stay in Istanbul cholera struck the city and the final decision was postponed until the end of the epidemy. Three Greek and two Turkish documents make it clear that Zographou and Chilandar were claiming the terrain of Giovantza on the northwest coast of Mount Athos as well as that the conflict was rather important for the two monasteries.

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