From Byzantium to the Ottomans: Continuity and Change on Mount Athos

Ηλίας Κολοβός & Νικόλαος Λιβανός

Ινστιτούτο Ιστορικών Ερευνών, Εθνικό Ίδρυμα Ερευνών

Στο πλαίσιο της σειράς σεμιναρίων “Modern and Contemporary Studies Seminar – Cycle 2: Orthodox Monasticism in the Eastern Mediterranean, 15th and 16th Centuries” που διοργανώνεται από τη Γαλλική Σχολή Αθηνών.

Abstract

The seminar will discuss Mount Athos during the transition from Byzantine to Ottoman rule, with a particular emphasis on the continuities and changes during this critical period, illustrating how the monasteries navigated their socio-political landscape under Ottoman rule to preserve their monastic traditions and properties. It will also explore how the gradual transition to idiorrhythmy, that had already begun since late Byzantium, influenced internal organization and property administration within the monasteries after the Ottoman conquest of the peninsula.

About the speakers

Elias Kolovos is Research Director at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF). His research interests include Mediterranean economic history, the history of insular worlds, the history of frontiers, rural and environmental history, as well as spatial history and the legacies of the Ottoman Empire. He has also conducted studies and published works on the Athonite monasteries under Ottoman rule and on monasteries in general as economic and social entities

Nikolaos Livanos is Associate Researcher at the Institute of Historical Research of the National Hellenic Research Foundation (NHRF). His work focuses on the historical study of Orthodox Christian monasticism, specializing in the Byzantine and post-Byzantine archival sources from Mount Athos. His research interests include diplomatics, paleography, as well as the history and historiography of the monastic foundations with a particular emphasis on the development of sacred spaces and collective memory in monastic communities.