Gregoriou Monastery is 17th in the hierarchy of the monasteries of Mount Athos. The monastery is seaside, on a cape on the southwest coast of the Athon Peninsula, south of the Monastery of Simonopetra and north of the Dionysios Monastery. This cape surrounds a lush fishing pond.
It was founded by Osios Gregory of Sinaiti in 1345, replacing the temple of Poseidon. The monastery honors the monk Gregory from Syria from the island of Syros, who in 1400 wrote the rules of monastic life in the monastic community of Gregory. Moldovan ruler Stephanos of the Occupation is mentioned as the third founder of the Monastery because he was a great benefactor in his early years.
The Katholikon was built in 1762 and was painted in 1779 by the Kastorian painters Gabriel and Gregory thanks to the subsidies of the Romanian patricians. In the library there are 4,000 printed books, 279 manuscripts, including the only Ermas manuscript. This manuscript belongs to the secret books of the Gospel.
In the sacristy there are precious documents, icons, a piece of Timios Wood, sacred vestments, Evangelistria, reliquaries such as those of the two miraculous saints Cosmas and Damianos, Gregory Nazianzenos, Dionysios Aeropagitis, and those containing the right hand of Gregory the Theologian and the legs and right hand of Saint and Martyr Anastasia. In the large portable number of icons, two icons of Panagia, Galaktoropousa (in the middle of the 15th century) and the Pantanassa copy of the image destroyed in the Fall of Constantinople belong to and are particularly honored.
The Holy Gregory Monastery maintains fourteen chapels, of which seven are in the monastery. From the chapels of Saint Gregory, the Creator (1851) is embedded in the northern part of the katholikon. In the western part of the old courtyard is the chapel of Agia Anastasia of Rome, built in 1775. There are also 18th century Saint Demetrius, Panagia Zoodochou Pigi, Agii Anargiri Kosmas and Damianos and Agios Spyridon of the 19th century. End of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel and St. John the Baptist, dilapidated today. However, as part of the reconstruction of the new, eastern wing, which began in 1997, a new chapel, with a dome dedicated to the same saint, was already incorporated. The monastery also has seven chapels. The cemetery temple is dedicated to the Saints.
The Gregoriou Monastery has six Kellys, in Karyes along with its Saint Tryphonian delegation. The Kellis of Agioi Anargyroi, where the painters of Palaeomi, the Ypapanti of Christ, are housed in the center of Karyes, where the hagiographers Iosafaios, the St. Philotheos of Kokkinos, near the temple of the Protatus, renovated in 1995. Finally, of Agios Nikolaos, northeast of Karyes, in the location “Kommeni” and the Cell of Saints Athanasios and Kyrillos located in the area of Kapsala. The Gregoriou Monastery has six seats in its wider region: the 19th century Athonite Fathers, which was renovated in the years 1976-90. Of the Virgin Mary, 18th century, where he practiced for one year and Saint Akakios Kavsokalivitis, before settling permanently in Kavoskalivia. This Kathisma is thirty meters from the cave where the founder and founder of the monastery, Osios Grigorios, exercised. It also has the seats of the Holy Apostles and St. John the Theologian in the forest at an altitude of 700 m. Finally, the seats of Saint Artemius, Saint Protartistos Stefanos and Prophet Elias, which also function as a firehouse of the monastery forest.
