International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Sotiris Voyadjis
Papagou, Greece; 
[e-mail] 
The Katholikon of the Greatest Lavra Monastery in Athos Revisited
In the years 2013 and 2014, during works on the restoration of the lead-sheet cover of the 
Katholikon of Greatest Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos, limited research was undertaken. Certain 
aspects of the earlier phases of the building history of the oldest church in Mount Athos were 
illuminated. As is widely known, the katholikon was completed around the year 1000 and reached 
1814 almost complete. Then the two-storey narthex and exonarthex along with every structure 
between the two chapels was demolished, and a grand single-storey domed narthex was built. 
During the soundings the vaults and the bases of the dome drums were revealed among others 
and new evidence into the original form of the church was discovered:
• The base of the original drum of the main naos was circular. Therefore it seems that it was 
twice demolished and rebuilt in the 16
th
century, once with an eight faceted drum as it appears 
on the famous 1535 wall painting and once with a sixteenth faceted one as it is now.
• On the backside of the wall that separated the main naos with the original two-storey narthex, 
where the catechoumena used to be, the structure of the closed triple window was revealed. Its 
upper part was already blocked since 1535, when the main naos was painted by Theophanis the 
Cretan; the lower part in 1814 during the remodeling of the narthex. The walls were covered 
with wall paintings with an inscription. This showed that the main room of the tripartite 
second floor of the narthex was at least 1m higher than previously thought, which changes the 
proposed original form.
• Every piece of wall revealed was made of rough rubble intended to be plastered. This reinforces 
the fact described at the Vita of St. Athanasius that he chose to build the church with the help 
of the monks instead of professional builders.
• The structure of the vaults of the side choirs was revealed. It seems that the side choirs were 
not originally connected to the main body, but were added to an already finished arch as filling 
walls, drums. 
• The walls of the east compartments of the side chapels were raised at least 1m to support the 
1814 all-encompassing timber roof. Their original vaults were revealed. 
• A circular window was detected on the west façade of the chapel of St. Nicholas similar to the 
south one. 

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• A small window on the south side of the nave was found, blocked by the south chapel of St. 
Nicholas, proved that the latter was an addition. Nothing similar was found about the north 
chapel. However the structure of the domes of the two chapels is so similar and their marble 
floors belong exactly to the same period with the rest of the church, not to mention the liturgical 
texts that speak about two chapels, that it can be confirmed that St. Nicholas belonged to the 
original plan, but was added at a later stage. 
Although evidence has been added to Paul Mylonas’ notion that the side choirs were added 
40-50 years later to the main body of the church this has not been proved. Differential settlement 
which would account for later foundations does not exist. There is no plaster were the choirs lean 
onto the arches although the church was originally plastered. And it is not uncommon for the 
apses to be built shortly after the arches have been finished. Moreover the church which is not of 
the athonite type but of a peculiar triconchal cross in square would be incomplete without the side 
choirs. However only soundings at the foundations can prove or disprove this hypothesis.