{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2021}} {{Infobox saint |honorific_prefix=Saint | name = Peter the Athonite | image = Onuphrius, Macarius of Egypt, and Peter of Athos.jpg | caption = Icon of Onuphrius, Macarius of Egypt, and Peter of Athos (Menologion of Basil II) | birth_date = Around 9th century | birth_place = Byzantium | death_date = 9th century | death_place = Mount Athos | feast_day = June 12 (Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic) | venerated_in = Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Catholic Churches, Roman Catholic Church | titles = Hermit | attributes = Monastic garb, cave | patronage = Mount Athos }}{{Short description|7th century hermit of Mount Athos}} '''Peter the Athonite''' (d. 9th century), sometimes called ''Peter of Mount Athos'', is reputed to have been the first hermit to settle upon the Mount Athos.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Venerable Peter of Mount Athos |url=https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2017/06/12/101697-venerable-peter-of-mount-athos |access-date=2025-04-16 |website=www.oca.org}}</ref> He is venerated as a saint and commemorated by the Eastern Orthodox, Eastern Catholic and Roman Catholic Churches on June 12.<ref>Great Synaxaristes: {{in lang|el}} ''[http://www.synaxarion.gr/gr/sid/3764/sxsaintinfo.aspx Ὁ Ὅσιος Πέτρος ὁ ἐν τῷ Ἁγίῳ Ὄρει ἀσκήσας].'' 12 Ιουνίου. ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ.</ref>
== Biography == Peter the Athonite is primarily known through hagiographical traditions. According to these accounts, he was a soldier who was captured during a war with the Syrians and imprisoned in a fortress in the city of Samara, on the Euphrates River.<ref name=":0" /> He was reportedly freed through miraculous intervention while in captivity, with Saint Nicholas and Saint Simeon the Righteous appearing to assist in his escape from a Muslim prison.<ref>[https://www.goarch.org/chapel/saints?contentid=490 "Peter the Athonite", Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America]</ref> In gratitude, he travelled to Constantinople (New Rome) to fulfil a vow to become a monk, where he reportedly received the monastic habit directly from the Pope, who also instructed him in ascetic discipline.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Св. Петр Афонский |url=https://blagosloven.ru/svyataya-gora/podvizhnikam/sv-petr-afonskiy.html |access-date=2025-04-15 |language=ru}}</ref>
Following a vision of the Blessed Virgin and Theotokos, Peter journeyed to Mount Athos, where he lived as a hermit in a cave for nearly fifty years. <ref>{{Cite web |title=www.synaxaristis - ΜΕΓΑΣ ΣΥΝΑΞΑΡΙΣΤΗΣ |url=https://www.synaxarion.gr/gr/sid/3764/sxsaintinfo.aspx |access-date=2025-04-15 |website=www.synaxarion.gr}}</ref> According to tradition, he was once discovered by a hunter, who described him as a naked man covered with hair and bearing a long beard. Peter reportedly instructed the hunter to pray for a year and not to speak of their meeting. When the hunter returned a year later with his demon-afflicted brother and other companions, they found that Peter had died. The afflicted man touched the saint's body and was said to be miraculously healed.<ref name=":0" />
After his repose, his relics were discovered by a hunter and taken to the Monastery of Clement, a formerly existing monastery that is now occupied by the Monastery of Iviron.<ref name="Renewal">{{cite book | last=Speake | first=Graham | author-link=Graham Speake | title=Mount Athos: renewal in paradise | publisher=Denise Harvey | publication-place=Limni, Evia, Greece | date=2014 | isbn=978-960-7120-34-2 | oclc=903320491 | pages=41–42}}</ref>
== Legacy == Some sources place his life in the 7th and 8th centuries, others situate him in the 9th century.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Venerable Peter of Mount Athos |url=https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2017/06/12/101697-venerable-peter-of-mount-athos |access-date=2025-04-16 |website=www.oca.org}}</ref>
A hagiography devoted to Saint Peter the Athonite was written at Hilandar by Genadius the Athonite.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.academia.edu/29701504|title = Old Serbian Literature and Its Mediaeval Manuscript Heritage, in: The World of Serbian Manuscripts (12th-17th centuries), edd. D. Otašević, Z. Rakić, I. Špadijer, Belgrade 2016, 153-173|last1 = Spadijer|first1 = Irena}}</ref>
A ''vita'' ([https://clavis.brepols.net/clacla/OA/Details.aspx?id=D9C086F70CCF4E67A1E4AEB895F8AAB6 BHG 1505]) of Peter the Athonite was also written by an Athonite monk named Nicholas sometime around the late 10th or early 11th century.<ref>{{cite book|last=Greenfield|first=Richard P. H.|last2=Talbot|first2=Alice-Mary Maffry|author2-link=Alice-Mary Talbot |title=Holy Men of Mount Athos|series=Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library|volume=40|publisher=Harvard University Press|publication-place=Cambridge, Massachusetts|date=2016|isbn=978-0-674-08876-4|page=ix}}</ref> It was translated into Italian in 1999.<ref>Rigo, Antonio (1999). ''Alle origini deli Athos: La Vita di Pietro l'Athonita''. Magnano.</ref>
==See also== {{commonscat}} {{Portal|Saints}} *Silouan the Athonite
==References== {{reflist}}
==Sources== * {{cite book|author1=Dimitri E. Conomos|author2=Graham Speake|title=Mount Athos, the Sacred Bridge: The Spirituality of the Holy Mountain|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f4Gp3LRoz7oC&pg=PA69|date=1 January 2005|publisher=Peter Lang|isbn=978-3-03910-064-4|pages=69–}} * ''Venerable Peter of Mt. Athos.'' OCA - Feasts and Saints. * ''St. Peter of Mount Athos.'' Catholic Online.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Peter Of Mount Athos}} Category:Monks on Mount Athos Category:Christian hermits Category:Saints of medieval Greece Category:9th-century Christian saints Category:9th-century Byzantine people Category:9th-century deaths