Venerable Peter of Mount Athos

Captivity and Deliverance

According to the synaxarion, Peter prayed to Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker while imprisoned at Samara. Tradition relates that Saint Nicholas appeared to him and counselled him to invoke Saint Simeon the God-Receiver, and that the two saints together effected his release—Saint Simeon dissolving his chains and Saint Nicholas guiding him to Greek territory.

OrthodoxWiki notes that the prison of his captivity is identified by some accounts with the same fortress that later held the Forty-Two Martyrs of Amorion. Directed by Saint Nicholas, Peter is said to have travelled to Rome, where he received the monastic habit at the tomb of the Apostle Peter.

Hermit of the Holy Mountain

Peter is venerated as the first hermit of Mount Athos. The synaxarion relates that he dwelt in its desolate places for fifty-three years without seeing another person, living as a solitary and, by tradition, contending with many temptations while sustained by the help of the Theotokos.

Tradition describes his eventual discovery by a hunter, who found him as a man covered with hair and wearing a long beard. His example is cited in the Athonite tradition as the foundation of the eremitic life on the peninsula.

Relics & Shrines

His relics were initially kept at the monastery of Saint Clement on Athos, a site later associated with the Monastery of Iviron. According to the OCA synaxarion they were hidden during the Iconoclast period and transferred in 969 to Photokami in Thrace.