Typikon for the Great Lavra
The founder’s own rule for the Great Lavra on Mount Athos, written about ten years after the monastery was begun. Its opening sections tell how and why the house was built and quote the lost charter of Nikephoros Phokas.
Athanasius the Athonite wrote the typikon as superior of the Lavra, after the murder of his patron Nikephoros II Phokas in 969. Sections 2–8 are a history of the foundation in the first person; sections 12 and 18 quote the emperor’s chrysobull, which does not otherwise survive; the rest regulates the choice of the superior, the admission of monks, property and the place of solitaries beside the common life.
It is the founder’s account and passes over what did not suit him. The translators note that it is silent about the attempt of the other Athonite monks to have him removed, which is the subject of Typikon of John Tzimiskes (the Tragos).
Cited in
- AD 963 to AD 972, estimated date