Designation

The official name of the Monastery is the Holy Great Monastery of Vatopedi. The basic name Vatopedi or Vatopediou appears already in the first historical testimonies concerning the Holy Mountain and has a double etymology and correspondingly double spelling a) interpreted as a child of the briars, it is based on a tradition. According to this, the Monastery was founded in the 4th century by Theodosius the Great, whose son Arcadius was miraculously saved from a shipwreck and found in its area full of brambles, (excavations carried out in 2000 around the current catholicon brought to light the early Christian temple, the great basilica that Theodosius the Great had built, on the ruins of this original temple the current catholicon was built in the 10th century) b) interpreted as a field of brambles, it simply indicates the fact that in the area around the Monastery there are many brambles.