ABSTRACT
The principle o/abaton on Mt Athos In the mid-fifteenth century, an elderly man named Markellos, a generous benefactor of Xeropotamou on Mt Athos, decided to become a monk at the monastery. He left his wife Nymphodora behind at a nunnery near Hierissos and just outside the boundaries of Athos because 'Mount Athos is unapproachable (dvemparov) by the female sex except for the all-holy Mother of God', as Nymphodora stated in her final will and testament.2 Her words are unambiguous testimony to the exclusion of women from Mt Athos - the principle of abaton, a practice which seems to have been in force from the time when hermits first arrived on the deserted peninsula in the ninth century.3
