Holy Monastery of Xiropotamos

It was founded before 956 and is probably the oldest of the surviving monasteries on Mount Athos. Due to the unstable ground on which it was built, its buildings suffered, and continue to suffer, serious damage. Characteristic is the case of its Catholicon (commemorated in memory of the Forty Saints) which must have been built in the 10th century and was rebuilt from the foundations at the end of the 13th century, in 1445(?), in the middle of the 16th century and, in 1763, by Caesarios Dapontes. It was frescoed in 1783. The most important relics of the Monastery are the large piece of the Holy Wood and the Panagiarion, the so-called "Pulcheria's disk". The facilities of the port of Daphne also belong to Xeropotamou.