1627 – new ‘discovery’ on Athos: the forgotten kelli of Agiou Onoufriou

IMG_2296Athos keeps surprizing me! After the ‘discovery’of the abandoned kelli Timiou Stavrou in 1986, that has been inhabited now since 5 years by Father David, I thought I’d seen all forgotten and deserted settlements.

When I visited Filotheou in the past years I was puzzled by a large building that could be seen on the other side of the valley, in the direction of Iviron. On Tuesday September 2nd I passes this building on a close range, not realizing it was so near.

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Two days later, on September 4th, we had to change plans because of the thunderstorms near the mountain, so we decided to go back to Karakalou monastery. From there I only had to walk 1 h.15 min v.v. to what showed to be “kelli Agiou Onoufriou”.

IMG_2372 (Large)A beautiful monopati leads from Filotheou to the kelli, only the last few hundred meters goes over a dirt road.

 IMG_2373 (Large)Soon after leaving the monopati, you can see a sign. Behind it you can see a wall, that is part of the original path that leeds to the kelli, which is blocked now by a pole and vegetation. I took the dirt road and soon saw this building:IMG_2303 (Large)The building is two stories high with a large church under a iron and rusted dome. The is one main entrance and another one in the backyard. Let’s have a closer look at the exterior.

IMG_2371 The facade of the kellion, with a wooden balcony.

IMG_2370The front door (which was locked).

IMG_2369Looking from the front door to Filotheou. Next to the main building is one storie high building where the backery and kitchen were found.

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IMG_2304Behind the kitchen there is another building, standing alone, probably a shed for storage of equipment and tools.

IMG_2366the second building or shed ?

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IMG_2309The interior of the second building/shed: it was too dangerous to go in, the wooden floors were rotted away.

IMG_2367I walked between the two buildings and saw an overgrown courtyard: under the overhanging balcony and between the bushes a second door was found.

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IMG_2350Right to the second door there is an intact (!) toilet – the white building and the kitchen/backery

IMG_2358The second entrance, with the toilet building right. This entrance could be opened and I had look inside, whitch was amazing! Next time I will show you what I found.

IMG_2351To the left of the second door: on ground floor is a small chapel, on the first/second floor a relatively large church

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IMG_2353And here is founding stone: build in 1881, as many Russian building are on Athos. This was very productive time for Russians on Athos and a lot of money was spend on erecting several places, like Panteleimonos, Skiti Prof Eliou, Palio Monastiro, Bogoroditsa, the Serail/skiti Andreou,  and Timiou Stavrou. Now another large building is added to the list of Russian settlements!

IMG_2354The back side of the main building, with an apse from the churches

IMG_2355The other side of the main building, with a strange reinforcement made of rough stones in the corner.

IMG_2356The reinforcement: in the wall above you see large cracks. Maybe this was build to prevent the building collapsing?

IMG_2348Here is the opened door, which gave me acces to the building. The amazing things I saw inside will be shown in a next post!

Here an example of what I found inside:

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Wim, 23/9

PS: the pictures in this blog are of a minor quality, because the batteries of my Nikon camera were empty, so these pictures were shot with my iPhone-4 camera (with 5% battery left!).

This entry was posted in kellia, ruins, trip 2014 and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink.

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