Today I found this postcard of Skiti Andreou without the church, that was used for the first time on June 16th 1900.
On the back of this postcard it says 1917, but this picture must have been taken long before 1900, because there are no signs of building activities, except for ones on the left, outside the complex.
The foundation stone of the largest church of the Balkan is laid in 1867.
In 1841 the Serail just was a small cell with a handfull of monks, belonging to Vatopediou. Giannis send me a picture from 1860 of this original cell called Ag. Antoniou. The picture is made by a Russian archeographer and collectioner P.I. Sevastianov, who came to pay visit in 1852, just after the invention of photography, and who held workshops in Skiti Andreou.
The cell is situated where the red arrow is pointing:
Early 20th century postcard.
Serail – lithograph from around 1900
(also see 491)
Wim, 19/1
Athos - Agios Oros 
Good scoop Herman, see how people react on your message and add more information: http://www.johnsanidopoulos.com/search/label/Mount%20Athos
and http://logismoitouaaron.blogspot.com/2009/09/unfortunate-dan-brown-simonopetra.html
Wim
Have a great trip to Athos guys, hope it all goes well, and look forward to seeing some photos and reading about your adventures on the blog.
This week the translation in Dutch of Browns book has been published. In a recent interview the author said he even showed up, while writing his book, in cities that don’t have any relation with the story of his book, to mislead the public about the theme. So the picture of I.M. Símonos Pétras must be, I think, a deliberate red herring.