Xeropotamos Monastery is the 8th in the hierarchy of Mount Athos. Nowadays, in the Monastery of Xeropotamos there are approximately twenty-five monks (monasteries and members).The frescoes of 1783 are worth of seeing, the only preserved template of the katholikon and the sacred sacristy the Pulcheria album.
It was founded by the monk Pavlos Xeropotaminos who lived in the time of Athos Athanasios the Athonite (late 10th century). Its prosperity is due to the Palaiologues. During the Ottoman Empire, the monastery was benefited by the Sultan Selim II, and his victory against the Mamluks of Tunisia, after a miraculous appearance of forty warriors, it was attributed to the Saints forty witnesses, patrons of the Monastery.
Its katholikon is dedicated to the Fourty Witnesses. Among the relics kept in the Katholikon is the largest Timber Wood in the world (31 cm in length, 16 cm in width and 25 cm thick.) According to a tradition, it is a gift of Emperor Romanos A ‘, while the other is a tribute to the Empress Pulcheria ), other smaller pieces of the same wood, relics with bones of Saints Saranta and others with relics of saints. The monastery has many remarkable heirlooms. The monastery has many remarkable heirlooms. It also stores some of the gifts of the Magi who worshiped the birth of Christ, part of “Akantino Stefano”, “Spongo” and “Xlamyda”. In reliquaries, there are the bones of sixty one Saints.
The Xeropotamos monastery has altogether 16 chapels inside and outside the monastery complex. Inside are seven of which five are hagiographed. In the Catholic, on both sides, there are two hagiographies of the Archangels and Saints Constantine and Helen. Of these, which are on the wings of the monastery, frescoed is the one of the Temple of the Cross in the southwest corner. The rest hold only icons and are of the Baptist and “Eisodion tis Theotokou” in the west wing, and Saint Theodosius and Saint George in the eastern wing of the monastery. The cemetery of the Xeropotamos monastery is dedicated to the “Agioi Pantes”.
