From now on I will start publishing articles about Athos from old Dutch newspapers and magazines.

The oldest article dates from December 23th 1858: “according to a German source a manuscript from the 3th century from Philostratus was discovered near the Athos mountain: the text from Philostratus concerns gymnastic exercises, and he wrote about the life of Apolonius of Thyane. 

The second article dates from the 3th of November 1906:

The news is about murderes commited on Mount Athos with the title “Balkan-states”. All the victems were Bulgarian and there were reasons that the perpetrators were Greek. The article continues by telling “that the Russian gouvernement is planning to put some police officers on Mount Athos and this was not welcomed by Turkish officials”. The Turks also sent a highly ranked official to Athos to investigate the ones who commited the crimes.

At that time Athos was overcrowded and many people from Eastern Europe came to live there, unfortunately not only holy men……

Wim, 18/6