One day Saint John the Beloved and Our Most Holy Mother of God were travelling by boat to Cyprus to visit Saint Lazarus. A storm arose and led the boat to the Holy Mountain Athos, which at that time was a place full of idols and idol worshippers. When Our Most Blessed Lady stepped foot on the island, the demons in the idols witnessed to her Holiness and crumbled, and all the unfaithful came to believe in Christ and His Holy Mother. Mount Athos has since been Blessed and Protected by Our Holy Mother of God, as her garden.
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Panagia, pleased by the beauty of the Mountain and the share that she was granted, Prayed to Christ saying:
“My Son and my God, Bless this place and my share. And pour forth upon it Your mercy and preserve it unharmed until the close of this age. And those who dwell in it, through Your Holy Name and mine, who through a small effort and struggle of repentance, are granted remission of their sins. Fill them with every good and necessary thing in this age, and grant them Eternal Life in the age to come. Glorify this place above all others, and Miraculously and utterly fill it from all nations under Heaven, who are called by Your Name, and enlarge their dwellings from one end to the other. Deliver them from eternal damnation, and save them from every temptation, from visible and invisible foes and from every heresy, and give peace to the Orthodox Dogma.”
Then she heard a voice from the Heavens that said:
“Whatever you ask and Pray for, O My Mother, is yours always, if they keep My Commandments! From now on this place will be Your share and Your garden and Paradise, and a haven of Salvation for those who desire to be saved, but also a recourse and refuge and unshaken haven of repentance for those who are weighed down with many sins.”
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Theotokion from the First Ode of the Canon of the Athonite Fathers: When God apportioned the nations according to his Angels, knowing that you, O Virgin, would be His Immaculate Mother, He then allotted you this great and beautiful mountain as an inalienable inheritance.
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