Mount Athos (France)

Mount Athos in France was founded by three French inhabitants of the monastery of Simonopetra: Hieromonk Placidus (Desey) , Seraphim (Piotte) and Elijah (Rago) ^[3] . Before conversion to Orthodoxy, these French were Cistercian monks . Their accession to the Orthodox Church took place on Mount Athos through the sacrament of baptism performed on them in 1977 by the Simonopeter rector Archimandrite Emilian (Vafidis) . Having lived on the Holy Mountain for about two years ^[4] , with the blessing of Emilian’s father, they returned to France to create Simonopeter's farmsteads ^[3] .

In May 1978, Hieromonk Elijah (Rago) founded the first courtyard in honor of the Transfiguration of the Lord in Martel ( Lot department ). The first liturgy in it was served on June 24 of that year ^[5] . In 1990, this convent was forced to relocate to Terrasson ( Dordogne ) ^[1] . Guided by the consciousness of spiritual succession in relation to ancient Gallic Christianity, the Transfiguration Monastery acquired the historical monument of Terrasson: the cave of St. Sura, who founded the first monastery in these places in the VI century ^{[6] [7]} . In the Preobrazhensky Compound, pilgrims are accepted, they are engaged in sheep husbandry , walnut breeding, and jam production ^[8] . Patrons of the monastery: St. Nectarius of Aegina , Rev. Simon the Myrrh-streaming , Equal-to-the-Apostles Mary Magdalene .

Father Placidus and Father Seraphim, arriving in France in 1978, did not immediately find a place for their monastery. They made a pilgrimage to the relics of St. Anthony the Great in Saint Antoine l'Abbey , where they prayed to the founder of monasticism, promising, in case of finding a plot of land, to dedicate a new monastery to the saint ^[9] . A few days later, upon returning to Athos, they received a letter from which it became known that they had donated a plot of land for the construction of an Orthodox monastery. This site was located 30 km south of Saint Antoine l'Abbei in the gorge Laval Vercors mountain massif (commune Saint-Laurent-en-Royan ). In this place was founded the second courtyard of Simonopetra, this time male. The monastery was dedicated to St. Anthony , and the patron saints of the courtyard were St. Nectarius of Aegina and St. Memorial Kanozsky , an ancient Italian saint, whose veneration penetrated the Laval Gorge from Bari . The first worship in the monastery took place on September 14, 1978 ^[10] . Since then, the cloister has become the center for the systematic adaptation of Byzantine chants to the liturgical texts in French.

Having set up a temporary chapel and eager to lay the foundation for the monastic life of the courtyard on the basis of the thousand-year tradition of the Holy Mountain, the brothers performed worship services daily, restored and put in order the premises of the monastery. However, the first to join the monastic fraternity of the French aphonites were not men, but women. In 1981, three women settled at the monastery who wished to devote themselves to Christ. In the fall of 1984, they took monastic tonsure. Soon the monastery was able to redeem a house located three kilometers from it (in the same gorge, but closer to Saint-Laurent), in which five sisters settled in June 1985. So the convent of the Protection of the Mother of God was formed ^{[11] [3]} .

In 1991, eight nuns and one novice lived in the Pokrovsky monastery ^[12] . It was impossible to expand the sister's house because of the protected zone of the gorge. Therefore, after the acquisition of agricultural land in Solana near the city of Uzes, the Intercession Monastery moved there. Having restored the old farm, the sisters engaged in ecological farming. The monastery began to produce various wines, preserves, frankincense, etc.

In one of his conversations, Father Placidus spoke about the difficulties of further development, which vary depending on the region where metochia is located. So, around the Antoniev Monastery, there is mainly a de-Christianized population, while in the Solan region there are much more Christians. The Antonievsky monastery has many difficulties with the local administration, taxes for it are higher than for the Pokrovsky monastery ^[4] .

Despite all kinds of obstacles, the brethren of the monastery in Vercors built a church in 1988-1990 in honor of the Monk Siluan of Athos . The architectural appearance of the temple combines the features of the Byzantine and Romanesque styles . The project was developed by father Gilda, one of the inhabitants of the monastery. In 1992-1998, the temple was painted free of charge by Moscow icon painters Yaroslav and Galina Dobrynins (about 600 m ² ) ^{[3] [13] [14]} . In 1998, thanks to the Catholic Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence, the monastery transferred a particle of the relics of St. Anthony the Great.

At the same time, a wooden church in the Romanian style was erected in the Transfiguration Monastery.

Since 1996, Father Seraphim began to live in solitude on the island of Porkerol ( Var department ). The mayor of the island provided him with a former military fort of Penance ( French Fort de la Repentance ), which was used only once during the Second World War for its intended purpose. Archimandrite Seraphim opened a monastery in the walls of the fort in honor of the Monk Mary of Egypt , equipping one of the rooms with a small church painted by Yaroslav Dobrynin in 2006-2008 ^{[15] [16]} .

Number of monks in Athos courtyards in France:

• Transfiguration convent - 6 sisters and abbot of the monastery archimandrite Ilya ^[1] ;
• Monastery of St. Anthony for men - up to 10 brothers, some of whom live outside the monastery, including in the monastery on Porkerol ^[3] ;
• Pokrovsky convent for women - about 15 sisters of seven nationalities ^[17] .

• Mount Athos
• Simonopetra
• Annunciation Monastery (Ormilia)

•   Wikimedia Commons has media related to Mount Athos (France)
• Simonopetra monastery on the Mount Athos website
• L'Athos en France (French)