Mount Athos has been inaccessible to women for many centuries. It was decided, it is said, by Emperor Constantine the Monomachos(Gladiator) so that the monks could live an ascetic life.
This was secured by decisions of emperors, patriarchs, sultans, articles of international regulations, all Greek Constitutions and a decree of law.
Women are not allowed to enter Mount Athos. Of course, the Mount Athos monks explain that the prohibition is not a disparagement of women, but a respect for monasticism and protection of monks from temptation. Mount Athos also honors the Blessed Virgin Mary, through whom the sacrament of the Incarnation of the Son and the Word of God took place. That is why it is also called the "Orchard of the Virgin".
With the help of the Patriarch of Constantinople, Constantine the Gladiator (1042 - 1054) regulated the internal governance of the monasteries, the administration of their goods and their economic activity in 1046. According to the imperial document he issued, women were not allowed to enter the peninsula, a prohibition so strict that since then even the Turkish Agha or the officials who lived in Karyes did not take their harem.
This prohibition is already found in the words of the Emperor Justinian of 539, according to which:
"Neither does a woman go to a monastery of men, nor does a man go to a monastery of women..."
This strict principle is adopted and emphasized by almost all monastic regularities, which seek to deny any monastery access to persons of the opposite sex. And this principle has been followed faithfully and without exception by the monasteries of Mount Athos since their foundation.
But the rule has one exception: cats!
By imperial order, cats are excluded because they control the population of mice and rats.
And so they dominate monasteries and hermitages, attracting the monks' attention. William Dalrymple in his very readable Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium describes one particular event:
'"At this hour Christopher must be feeding his cats," replied the monk James, glancing at a pocket watch.
The old man stood on the shore holding a bucket full of fish. On his nose sat a pair of huge black spectacles. Two dozen cats swirled around his feet.'
Following the footsteps of Ioannis Moschos and his disciple, Sophronius the Sophist, who recorded their experiences in the "Leimonario" which is considered a masterpiece of Byzantine travel literature, the same path is followed, fourteen centuries after, by the heroes of "In the Shadow of Byzantium" book, by William Dalrymple, in their journey.
* Also interesting is an incident of monastic life told by the sister of Saint Paisios, Christina:
"Once I came to Stomio to see the Elder and I brought him two cats because he had a lot of mice, a pure nuisance.
"Father Paisie," I said, "I brought the cats to save you from the mice."
The next time I visit the monastery, I see cats and mice eating together in the kitchen.
I say, "Elder, I brought you the cats to eat the mice, and you are feeding them all together?"
He says to me, "Blessed sister, woe to them, everyone chases and kills them, they are also creatures of God!"
St. Paisios (Testimonies - Incidents - Teachings)
United Romiosini Publications, p. 202
