St Athanasius of Athos

Born Abraamios in Trebizond and educated in Constantinople, Athanasius fled worldly honors for the monastic life, first under St Michael Maleinos on Mount Kyminas, then in hiding on Mount Athos, where the Mountain was still a wilderness of scattered hermits. With the help of his friend Nicephorus Phocas, later emperor, he founded the Great Lavra in 963 — the first great coenobitic monastery on Athos, gathering monks into a common life of prayer, work, and obedience. Many hermits at first resisted the change, but his holiness and patience won them over, and he became the father of organized Athonite monasticism as it endures to this day. He reposed around the year 1000 when a church dome under construction collapsed on him and six of his monks; the whole Mountain mourned him as its founder.