Life and Monastic Withdrawal
Gerontios was abbot of the Bouleuterion Monastery on Mount Athos, an early foundation that Orthodox tradition associates with the era of Saint Athanasios the Athonite. Because the monastery lay near the seashore, it was exposed to repeated barbarian raids, and the monks abandoned it for more inaccessible places on the Holy Mountain. Tradition links this departure to the raids of the Catalan Company in the early fourteenth century, dated by one account to 1302.
With his disciple, Gerontios ascended to the upper part of the area that would later be known as the Skete of Saint Anna, seeking a life of stillness and prayer. There he constructed a hesychasterion and a church dedicated to Saint Panteleimon, on the site where a chapel of that dedication still stands. He is remembered as having lived a most wondrous life and as reposing at an advanced age.