A soldier taken captive and delivered through the prayers of St Nicholas, who in thanksgiving became a monk and dwelt as a hermit on the Holy Mountain of Athos for fifty-three years, the first of its hermits.
Feast Day
June 12
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Our Venerable Father Peter the Athonite, First Hermit of the Holy Mountain
Life
Peter of Mount Athos was a Byzantine soldier who, after captivity and a deliverance he attributed to the prayers of Saint Nicholas of Myra and Saint Simeon the God-Receiver, abandoned military life for monasticism and withdrew to the peninsula of Athos. Greek tradition reveres him as the first hermit to settle on the Holy Mountain, where he is said to have lived in solitude for fifty-three years.
His life is known chiefly through hagiographical tradition rather than contemporary documentation. The synaxarion frames his vocation as the result of successive visions—of Saint Nicholas, of the Apostle Peter's tomb at Rome where he was tonsured, and of the Mother of God, who is said to have designated Athos as the place appointed for him.
Timeline 3 moments
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667Captured in warWhile serving as a soldier in the imperial armies and living at Constantinople, Peter was taken prisoner during a war with the Syrians and confined in a fortress at Samara on the Euphrates River.
681Arrival on AthosAfter his deliverance from captivity, his tonsure at Rome, and a vision directing him to the Holy Mountain, Peter went ashore on Athos, where the synaxarion reports the ship halted of its own accord.
734ReposePeter reposed after his long solitary life; by tradition a hunter who had encountered him returned to find him already dead.
Contributions & Legacy
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Captivity and Deliverance
According to the synaxarion, Peter prayed to Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker while imprisoned at Samara. Tradition relates that Saint Nicholas appeared to him and counselled him to invoke Saint Simeon the God-Receiver, and that the two saints together effected his release—Saint Simeon dissolving his chains and Saint Nicholas guiding him to Greek territory.
OrthodoxWiki notes that the prison of his captivity is identified by some accounts with the same fortress that later held the Forty-Two Martyrs of Amorion. Directed by Saint Nicholas, Peter is said to have travelled to Rome, where he received the monastic habit at the tomb of the Apostle Peter.
Hermit of the Holy Mountain
Peter is venerated as the first hermit of Mount Athos. The synaxarion relates that he dwelt in its desolate places for fifty-three years without seeing another person, living as a solitary and, by tradition, contending with many temptations while sustained by the help of the Theotokos.
Tradition describes his eventual discovery by a hunter, who found him as a man covered with hair and wearing a long beard. His example is cited in the Athonite tradition as the foundation of the eremitic life on the peninsula.
Relics & Shrines
His relics were initially kept at the monastery of Saint Clement on Athos, a site later associated with the Monastery of Iviron. According to the OCA synaxarion they were hidden during the Iconoclast period and transferred in 969 to Photokami in Thrace.
