13.38 Document of the Docheiariou Monastery
August 1570
Docheiariou Monastery, Archives
Paper, 48.7 x 41.6 cm
Suspended from the bottom of the document on multicoloured cords are three Wallachian seals.
In the year 7076 (1567/8) Sultan Selim (II) ordered the confiscation of all monasterial property (lands and buildings, goods and dependencies), not only on Mount Athos but throughout his dominions. The monks of the Monastery of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel of Docheiariou turned for succour to Bogdan Pasha, Voivode of Moldavia and Wallachia, and his mother Roxandra. These rulers founded the monastery anew, re-purchasing the confiscated property (at a cost of 165 thousand aspers) and bestowing it upon the monastery. The monks undertake to perform every year at the Feast of St Nicholas a pernoctation in memory of Roxandra. This document was drawn up in the presence of the monks and of Roxandra and the Voivode Bogdan in perpetual remembrance of their forefather Alexander, called Brother Pachomios, founder of the Docheiariou Monastery.
Bibliography: Ktenas 1928, no. 15, p. 108-111. Cf. Economidis 1979, no. 118, pp. 241-2. See also no. 16.5.